Day of the Falcon
by nomuse
Summary: On the trail of an Egyptian artifact lost in the Mediterranean, Lara clashes with a mysterious paramilitary organization, who appear to have a massive underground headquarters hidden below Cheyenne Mountain.
1. Chapter 1

This is a cross-over story featuring some of the characters and situations of two commercial properties to which I own no rights and with this work intend no infringement of any kind.

The Stargate SG-1 crowd is drawn from some arbitrary point within the first four seasons; while the Goa'uld are still major antagonists, Janet Frasier is still alive, and Daniel hasn't died more than once or twice.

Lara Croft is more-or-less from the second continuity, that is the first set of Crystal Dynamics games, but presumably before the events of Tomb Raider: Underworld. Not all elements used in the story are canonical, not even to the admittedly flexible continuity of the Tomb Raider universe, much less to the more consistently documented Stargate universe.

Oh, yes. And the events depicted are probably a sequence-breaker for both continuities.

I need to be clear that all reference to actual countries, cities, peoples, institutions, and of course individual historical figures should be assumed to be entirely fictional and referenced entirely for the sake of telling an interesting story. No attempt is made to provide a reasoned or honest description or analysis of anything from the real world, from the quality of the cyan waters off Comino for skin diving to the mixed record of the Gadaffi regime. And of course I offer mangled history and mythology, because honestly, that's half the fun of a Tomb Raider story (and many Stargate stories as well).

* * *

The Mediterranean Sea, 36°01′N 14°20′E

* * *

The _Amelia II_ was in the shallow water of Blue Lagoon Bay off Comino, the turquoise water throwing back a sparkling reflection of her white hull and chrome fittings. She was a trim and lean 65-foot cruiser yacht — with minimum (though luxurious) accommodations and a racing hull. The pair of 600 HP marine diesels were powerful enough to push a torpedo boat through the water, and the craft was stout enough to take rough seas anywhere from the Cape of Good Hope to the Bering Strait.

Its pilot, owner, and sole occupant was also trim and elegant and had a lot more power under the hull than might be thought at first glance. She had started her day with a tough swim in some of her favorite waters, and as she dried off in the strong Mediterranean sun on the polished teak dive platform over the fantail of her yacht she was reviewing her notes.

"An unusual Horus jar showed up at a small private auction; it was from the personal collection of Catherine Langford, an eccentric Egyptologist." Her voice was melodious and measured, with the accent of South London softened by years in finishing school. "Unlike the straight wings of most Egyptian depictions, this one has raised wings that are strikingly similar to the Hawk of Quraish."

It became more than an academic interest when the auction house was bombed that very night: transparently, in an effort to cover up the theft of several items, the Horus jar in particular. The authorities had tentatively linked the bombing to the IRA (or, rather, RIRA, which was composed of breakaway members of the Provisional IRA), but Black Mike — a friend she had first met on the _Endurance_ — had used his contacts on her behalf. Which uncovered the clue that the RIRA members behind the bombing had been taking orders from Libya.

"The oldest depiction of the Hawk of Quraish is in Tripoli, on the Arch of Marcus Aurelius." Which was unfortunately in a rather public place, and while she was scaling it to look more closely at some puzzling — though nearly microscopic — markings she had attracted unwelcome attention. Not just local cops, but Colonel Muammar Gadaffi's personal troops as well.

After shaking off the Amazonian Guard, she had gone to interview the leading authority in Libya on pre-Roman antiquities. Who she discovered was currently a political prisoner in the notorious prison of Abu Salim. Breaking him out had made for an exciting night's work, and gave her new powered grapple gun an excellent field test.

Tawfiq Al Shafar had given her enough information to her out into the Tripolitan Sahara, to the ancient trilithon of Senam Bu-Samida. There she had to evade more attention from the Amazonian Guard, and a surprising number of armed regulars as well, who didn't appear to want outsiders stumbling upon the rambling chambers in Old Kingdom style hidden under the neolithic stones.

* * *

The reason was clear enough in the ultimate chamber deep underneath the shifting sands and behind a devilishly clever tilting slab of massive stone. Lara came to her feet, brushing rock dust and finely ground sand from her brown shorts. The powerful LED light hooked to her pack straps cast a cone of light into the dust filling the air.

Horus stood there, the body of a powerful, muscular man, bare to the waist in the classical garb of Old Kingdom Egypt, but his head the head of a raptor; a hook-beaked predator with that startling outlining of the eye that lent itself so well to depiction in Egyptian artwork. Like most Egyptian statuary it was of larger than human proportion, and likewise (at least, until the sad, faintly despairing fin de seicle flavor of the Ptolemiac sculpture) it broadcast power and arrogance and disdain. Lara felt sure that if the ancient Egyptian gods had been real beings, she would not have enjoyed their company.

The dias below the god, elaborately carved with the typical papyrus tree motifs, divided into three equal decorative niches. In a small pile of rubble from a minor rock fall from somewhere in the past millennia was the broken base of what could only be the twin to Catherine Langford's Horus Jar.

"Twins…or triplets," Lara said aloud. "The Colonel knows of this chamber. I wonder if this was where he headed when he went into the desert to 'meditate.' I imagine he holds the third jar that had been stored here."

She had to wonder what that jar contained, and if it might explain his meteoric rise to power, and his almost uncanny ability to weather the turbulent politics of this part of the world. She had witnessed stranger things.

She wondered how much he had studied the inscription on the walls. On first reading it was the typical voluble, obsequious praising of the god or Pharoah. The ancients went for that, as well as obsessive listing of possessions down to how many wives and how many sheep. Very rarely, she had found, did an inscription say, "Pull the lever to your left to gain super powers."

This one was typical; "…These generous gifts of the benevolent and mighty Horus, the God who Weeps…" And there was the falcon again, staring haughtily from the third line of the inscription.

Except, Except the falcon was staring the wrong way. Lara's lips parted in excitement. "Those ancient scribes were clever — clever enough to communicate with each other using subtle word-play, right under the noses of their Pharaoh. Figures always face the beginning of a line. If you assume this one falcon is not an error, but is a clue, then…"

Then the text was meant to be read Boustropherically; each line in an alternate direction. The third line was basically a palindrome, but beginning with the fifth line the meaning of the full inscription came out quite differently. "Beware the generosity of the traitor god, he that weeps but is not blind," she paraphrased. "But wait; if you read the cartouche counter-clockwise as well, the myrmis plant follows the falcon, instead of d/r/s you combine r/s/d; the name of the god becomes not Horus…but Hodur!"

"What is a Norse god doing in an Egyptian inscription?"

* * *

The sun had warmed her and the white one-piece suit had dried on her body. She uncurled from the deck chair and padded bare-footed into the shade of the cabin. A few small decorative artifacts occupied spaces in the wooden shelves, and a very modern laptop was on the desk. Lara keyed up an image of the text from the hidden chamber under Senam Bu-Samida.

"Hodur is mentioned only briefly in the eddas," she said, "mostly as the brother of Baldr. Baldr the Brave, a great hero of Norse legend, a warrior whose prowess would be key in the final battle. Except that he died in an accident, by an arrow loosed by his own blind brother."

What possible connection could that blind god have to one of the major figures of Egyptian mythology, the far-seeing god whose eye became a near-universal symbol of protection among the watercraft of the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years?

Perhaps this afternoon she would have answers. Lara carefully put away her journal and materials, then pulled up the anchor. The big marine diesels caught instantly and she turned the wheel East SouthEast, heading around the tiny island nation towards it's capitol, Valletta and the National Museum of Archeology; where the more fragile artifacts from the Tarxien Temples were currently stored.

* * *

The Mountain, 38°44′32.91″N 104°50′54.40″W

* * *

"Whatcha working on, Carter?"

Sam — Major Samantha Carter, theoretical physicist and Air Force officer — looked up from the cluttered lab bench with what looked like a friendly smile to anyone who didn't know her. "It's fascinating, sir," she told the newcomer. "We've discovered an apparent violation of Lorenz Covariance." Her grin grew. "But Doctor Lee could explain it much better than I could…"

"Well, um, Jack," the stocky, bespectacled scientist began.

"Colonel."

"Well, um, Colonel," the third person in the small experimental lab continued without missing a beat, "We were noticing a recent and recurring uptick in the data stream from the gate network. See, normally, this would be happening in the background so to speak. Not something the average gate user would ever know about." He had pushed back his chair from the lab bench and was rapidly warming to his subject. "But since Earth's primary gate was first opened without a DHD, the data stream is visible to our computers…err, you do know about that, right? That we had to open the gate the first times with our own hand-grown system, not the Dial Home Device that the Ancients originally designed?"

"Yes," Colonel Jack O'Neill, also of the Air Force and Sam's nominal superior, dead-panned. "I was there."

"Oh, right. When Doctor Jackson first made the insight about the gate coordinate system. Fortunately Abydos was close enough that the gate was able to compensate for stellar drift over a few thousand years, or we'd have never opened that first wormhole! It's all part of the problem of the expanding universe. Which isn't really expanding per se. I mean space isn't getting bigger. Well, it is, but I mean things aren't flying away from us. Well, they are, but it isn't because the universe is exploding. It's all due to expansion of the metric."

"I know about the expanding universe," the Colonel said. "I read that book by that wheelchair guy. Some of it. The first chapter, I read the first chapter."

Bill Lee sighed, then put on his friendliest teacher face. "It isn't that complicated, really. First off, you have to understand that every frame of inertial reference is unique. Observations within a reference frame are consistent, but that's where Universal Gravitation and the rest of the Newtonian universe breaks down…"

Sam made a cutting motion. "I'm sorry," she said. "He's egging you on, Bill. The Colonel knows this stuff. He just likes to play dumb."

"I'm not just playing," the tall, gray-haired Air Force Colonel in rumpled fatigues dead-panned, with that little eyebrow twitch that after several years (and some very strict Air Force regulations to consider) still made Sam a little weak at the knees.

"He was bored and decided to make a nuisance of himself around the lab. It was either that or bug Daniel, and Daniel isn't as much fun for him to bug. So I sic'd you on him in revenge."

"He does, and you did, and is he really? I mean Doctor Jackson, of course."

"That was unfair of me, and I'm sorry." Sam sighed, still annoyed at herself. "Doctor Lee's discovery is important, Colonel, and he gets full credit for making it. If you have the time, sir, we were about to brief General Hammond on our findings."

"You want me to be a nuisance to Hammond as well? I can do that. And in the evening, I can go be a nuisance Doctor Frasier. Except she has needles. I'm afraid of needles."

Sam looked him straight in the eyes. With those large blue eyes she knew had just as powerful an effect on him as he did on her. "Sir, you are never just a nuisance. Your insights are always invaluable."

Bill Lee looked back and forth at the two Air Force officers. He wasn't the most perspicacious person around, but there was a subtext here you could cut with a knife. In a rare moment of empathy for him, he loudly cleared his throat. "I'll get that printout ready. This would be a good time to go to Hammond's office."

* * *

"So what you are saying, is that the wormhole network is updating our stargate more often than it should be." General Hammond was a bald, no-nonsense barrel of a man in blue short-sleeved uniform shirt. He had the ability to grasp a situation quickly, and the experience to be decisive about his orders in regards to that situation. "Could this be an attack or exploit by one of our enemies?"

"We haven't ruled that out, sir," Sam replied. "We've isolated the wormhole computers from the network and are manually patching through corrections only as they become mandatory."

"These corrections," Hammond cut quickly to the heart of it. "This means there is something real in space that involves our gate?"

"Yes," Sam said reluctantly. She hated having to commit herself before all the science had been done.

Colonel O'Neill looked back and forth between the two scientists. He scratched his head. "Lemme see if I understand. The gates compensate for stellar drift. They move the coordinates so the gates go to where the stars are today, not where they were back when cavemen were riding dinosaurs around."

Bill Lee started to say something but Carter cut him off with a look. "Yes, sir, in a manner of speaking. Simultaneity is a tricky concept in a relativistic universe. Earth, or Abydos, has a unique inertial reference frame, meaning time itself is moving at a slightly different rate for each world. You can think of the wormhole network for this galaxy as having a single and arbitrary reference frame, which it uses as a template to adjust the connections between the stargates on different world. Sir, even the Antartica gate has to worry about this; the rotation of Earth is enough to cause a misalignment of clocks between there and here. It's the same thing the GPS system has to deal with to generate accurate coordinates for users on the ground."

"So the network is like Greenwich, and our gate synchronizes its watch to it every so often."

"Yes, sir." Sam was approving. "Another example would be your cell phone. The network calls it at intervals to find out where it is, and updates the stored location so it doesn't have to send a signal to every tower in town every time you get a text message."

"The problem we are having," Bill could not contain his need to contribute, "Is there has been an uptick in the number and frequency of these automated updates."

"So the Earth is roaming?" Colonel O'Neill asked.

"Roaming?" Bill Lee didn't understand the reference at first. "Oh, _roaming_. Like a cell phone you mean. Yes, that's it, the wormhole network thinks we are roaming. Oh, he he, I hope the ancients don't bill us with a roaming charge! Ah ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha…ahem."

"Yes sirs," Sam waited for Bill Lee to finish. "Earth isn't where or when the network thinks we should be, and is pinging us more frequently to try to keep us connected. We're stuttering, sir. The whole solar system. It started six months ago, and the frequency is increasing geometrically."

"Pardon me," General Hammond spoke then. "When or where? Do we not know which?"

Sam made that habitual gesture of hers that looked like she was pushing her glasses back on her nose. Except she didn't wear glasses, and the gesture looked nothing like that. "That's the problem of a relativistic universe, sirs. When is where and where is when."

"Ku ku chaloo."

They all ignored O'Neill's comment. They'd gotten good at that. "Well, which ever it is, is this going to be a problem for us?" Hammond asked. "What order of magnitude are we talking about here?"

"In terms of space, sir, tens of kilometers with each update. The wormhole network can compensate for that easily, but of the two possibilities that is the one that scares me most. The expansion of the metric doesn't apply at such fine scales. There shouldn't be grain in the expansion, not like that. It would mean something is seriously wrong either with space itself, or at least of our understanding of the universe."

"That's the option that worries you most?" the General questioned. "And the one that isn't as scary is…?"

"Oh, that's simple. It just means our solar system is micro-jumping in time."

* * *

Malta, 35°53′52″N 14°30′45″E

* * *

The National Museum of Archeology on Republic Street in Valetta was housed in the Auberge de Provence, a fine baroque building once used by the Knights of Malta. Lara Croft passed through the ground floor, admiring a reconstruction of the Hypogeum of Paola, excavated by the Maltese archeologist and polyglot Sir Thermistocles Zammit. The Grand Salon currently held a temporary exhibition of Modern Art, of which Lara was informed but largely uninterested. Within a few more minutes she was ushered in the office of the current curator.

Doctor Montanaro Gauci was apparently a man who took his work home with him. A crumbling bit of stone rested on a protective cloth under the powerful desk light, surrounded by printouts of micrographic images and chemical analysis. "Pardon the mess," he said wryly, coming up from around his desk to take Lara's hand. "Conservation has become a high-tech science, and I do try to keep up."

"Doctor Gauci," she took his hand. "Then I am even more thankful you were able to spare me a little of your time."

"Dear Miss Croft, it is the least I could do, after the aid you gave to one of my colleagues. I just received word this morning; he and his family made it safely to Rome."

There were more official-looking visitor's rooms elsewhere, with the requisite carpeted floors, massive desk, carefully selected artifacts, and a drop-down screen for the odd Power Point presentation to a potential sponsor. This was a working room instead, cluttered with books and paperwork and a large and eclectic personal collection.

Lara had the poise and manners to move comfortably in social circumstances, from a hot Shinjuku nightclub to a garden party in Windsor, but this was her preferred environment. The dusty shelves of artifacts, each holding magnificent stories for the person who knew how to listen to them. For some reason though, she reflected ruefully, her professional relationships did not do as well. It was troubling how many one-time colleagues had became acrimonious rivals over the years.

There was the falcon again, perched on one corner of the heavy-looking desk. This one, however, was realistically depicted in some dark material, possibly resin or stone. Doctor Gauci saw her looking towards the black bird, and grinned. "The Tribute of the Falcon, of course."

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, clashing with Suleiman the Magnificent in the long drawn-out conflict between Renaissance Christendom and the Ottoman Empire, had granted Malta, Gozo and the city of Tripoli to a branch of the militant religious order the Knights Hospitaller in return for the nominal tribute of a single falcon to be presented each All Saint's Day. The order stayed until 1798, when they were bankrupt by the French Revolution and then ousted physically by Napoleon, but until then had ruled the island and driven back the Ottoman Empire in the first major reversals that power had suffered.

"A prop, that is," Doctor Gauci grinned. He picked up the black bird. "This is a replica of the prop used in the Humphrey Bogart film, made in a small shop in San Francisco that specializes in Dashiell Hammett memorabilia."

Lara grinned in reply. Then winced all but imperceptibly at a memory of her own time in The City by the Bay.

* * *

She had been much younger then, and moved with the swallowed-a-sword posture of a recent graduate of finishing school. She was too credulous, and too convinced of the rightness of her own instincts, and she was sure, _sure_, that the great looming pyramid in the center of San Francisco's financial district had been secretly funded by the Illuminati.

Her research had been hasty and incomplete, and led her to believe (erroneously) that the only access to the interior of the aluminium-clad upper spire would be from outside.

She had a passing familiarity with aid climbing from following her father to some of his excavations. But this large, and public, skyscraper was a unique problem. While strolling the crowds in the crowded, tourist-kitschy Fisherman's Wharf — the northern waterfront of the city a local much-beloved columnist had named "Bagdad by the Bay" — she had a breakthrough. On the greens below Girardelli square, from which still wafted the unmistakable odor of fresh chocolate, a row of tall decorative iron lampposts marched in a gentle curve to the gates of the Maritime Museum.

The greens were filled with tourists and children and sunbathers and day painters and students. And some of the later were formed an excited group around two of the towering lampposts.

As she watched, a young man in a cropped orange shirt swung his body in an arc about the decorative Art Nouveau arm of one fixture, his head at least four meters above the ground, then released; hurling through space in a gymnastic move that brought him with a smack of the palms into the arms of the next post along.

There was a cheer from the crowd, and a round of friendly taunting. As she watched, a dark-haired young man in denim shorts, and a young woman shorter than Lara herself scrambled in turn up the first post, transferred their grip to the narrow metal arm, then performed the pull-over that began the routine. Lara could not suppress her gasp of fear as each in turn launched themselves into space, and she didn't begin breathing normally until each had returned safely to the ground.

She was an accomplished gymnast already. Her hands moved unconsciously, rehearsing the motions. She had not noticed that she had also drawn closer, pushing through the crowd, but one of the climbers did. The young man in the cropped orange shirt looked at her in friendly challenge. "You going to try?"

"Not without gloves," Lara said, and turned away.

Twenty minutes later she was back, having purchased gloves at one of the trendy stores lining the area, and clothes a little easier to move in than the calve-length white sundress she had been wearing. Both boys spotted her climb, and that was a good thing as she failed to stick the first jump. Hitting rough cast iron instead of the more forgiving equipment of a modern gymnasium had stung, even through gloves, and that broke her concentration. But she made the next one.

"You should talk to Jon," the lamppost jumpers had told her after a time. "He gets off shift at four."

Having money made for a more practical approach. Lara strolled to the pedibike dispatch stall, and put down money for a hire. "I want Jon," she said. "As soon as he is available."

As the very fit young man with the french accent pedaled her down the Embarcadero he told Lara over his shoulder a little of San Francisco's burgeoning "buildering" community. She had heard, vaguely, of the Night Climbers of Cambridge, or the "vadders" who explored the steam tunnels under MIT, but her background lacked the experience of being at a major university. And as far back as urban climbing went, this was still well before the term "Parkour" was on every lip.

After she promised to read up a little — the 'zine "Urban Archeology" was available in the independents section of local comic book stores — he gave her an invite to a crawl taking place that weekend. "Sixteen Street Mission station," he said. "Bring a flashlight. And waterproof shoes."

* * *

Over the next few weeks, she learned many of the names and faces of the people who were exploring the usually untrod parts of the city. Some were photographers, some students of architecture, others were in it for the thrill. They got chased out of at least one storm drain, performed a reccee of the Golden Gate bridge for a team that intended to abseil down into Fort Point, took pictures of climbers on an otherwise unremarkable building for the local 'zine. And she learned her urban climbing skills, mostly in (relatively) safer surrounds, like doing a long traverse around the first floor of the Museum of Modern Art, or practicing longer moves in the rather more controlled surroundings of the Pickle Family Circus circus arts school; a tottering warehouse filled with old props and chalk dust in the Mission District.

Her funds were the deciding point in favor of the very public ascent they made one typically fog-shrouded weekday night. All went more or less as planned. The trickiest part had been the transfer from the scalable inner core to the wide "wings" that framed out the lower stories, but from there it was a simple if exhausting set of repeated mantling exercises. About two in the morning the fog broke, and by two-thirty their ascent was made more colorful by a cluster of parked police cars.

And the aluminium cap had no form of access from outside. With a clever bit of rope-work they were able to summit, and clasp hands over the glass final cap, brilliantly lit by the red aircraft beacon inside. Ruefully, Lara realized there had to be internal access to service all of those light bulbs, and her research had been in error.

Fortunately the final part of the plan also worked to perfection. After a few heart-stopping moments as they parted and ran face-down down the sharply slanting sides of the building, their parasails popped open. And thus they BASE jumped over the surrounding buildings and the waiting police to the safety of their friend's getaway vans.


	2. Chapter 2

ARLINGTON, VA 38°91′N 77°11′W

* * *

Some other time, Lara would have taken her boat across the Atlantic. Being alone on the open ocean was a good way to clear your head. But something about the Tears of Horus affair was bugging her, urging her to keep the pressure on. So she had Cap'n Mike flown out to Valletta to see to the _Amelia II_ while she flew commercial to the East Coast of the United States. Dulles was not her favorite airport, but it was convenient enough to the bed and breakfasts of upscale Georgetown.

Cap'n Mike would take the long road, perhaps puttering about the Mediterranean Basin, perhaps heading out to the Bahamas, or perhaps pulling in to do more tinkering to the boat. Lara didn't care. Even when he'd managed to somehow strand himself on Lake Titicaca, the _Amelia II _was easy enough to move by truck and air; it would be where she needed it the next time she needed it, and in better condition than she'd left it to boot.

The area around DC, around the original thirteen colonies, wore its history as proudly as the American flags that waved from every other house. Which faintly amused Lara; their entire history as a nation would be not even a blip on the scales of history she usually delved. The Hapsburg dynasty alone had ruled longer than the experiment in democracy had run.

* * *

The interview at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valetta had been productive, but had also turned uncomfortable. It seemed to Lara that there were two worlds of archaeology. One was the respected journals, the big conferences, the university postings and the book deals. The other was an underworld of fringe journals and madmen; a world of careers ruined, of facts mainstream archaeologists spoke of only reluctantly, of finds hidden under Official Secrets acts.

She was part of that world, as apparently had been the younger Catherine Langford. So while she kept Doctor Gauci talking about the Battle of Lepanto or the Roman rule of the islands he was friendly and voluble. But he was less inclined to follow her into speculations about the hidden history of the Knights of Malta, or worse yet, the brief and cryptic mentions of the Tears of Horus that followed two famous admirals around.

The first was Turgut Reis, privateer, pasha, and admiral for the Ottoman Empire. Early in his career he had been captured at Corsica, and spent a few years rowing as a galley slave before being traded by Barbarossa back to Suleiman. He rose swiftly from that less than auspicious beginning, becoming commander in chief of the Ottoman naval forces in the Mediterranean. He sacked Malta, captured most of Tunisia, and assaulted Spanish ports as far as Sardinia and Rapallo.

After his capture of Tripoli he became Sanjek Bey, or provincial governor. By 1551 his forces were sacking most of Sicily and sailing into the Adriatic, and he defeated the fleet of the Holy League of Philip II in the Battle of Djerba.

His luck turned, however, at the Siege of Malta. Which coincided with the rise of another admiral; Mathurin Romegas. Romegas first came to the public eye as the miraculous survivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Malta; emerging from where he had been trapped under the hull of a capsized galley alive and unharmed, along with (of all things) his pet monkey.

He made a lifetime friend in de Valette himself, and was captain of one of the galleys that attacked and captured a heavily-armed Ottoman galleon, taking important prisoners; an incident that kicked off Suleiman's determined effort to drive the Knights from Malta once and for all. Romegas was instrumental in the defense of the Grand Harbor itself during the Siege of Malta, and commanded the Papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto.

His story had ended sadly, however; brought into conflict with another Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, he was recalled by Pope Gregory XIII in disgrace and died within the week.

It was in the many colorful tales of Turgut's exploits that the first brief mention of something called the "Tears of Horus" appeared. Lara considered it possible that he had owed some part of the miracles surrounding him to a duplicate of the same mysterious artifact Gadaffi had also taken from the hidden temple outside of Tripoli. Which was not to downplay his evident skills as a sailor and a leader!

And if you assumed that, then perhaps the artifact changed hands in the Bay of Malta; perhaps even found by a drowning Mathurin Romegas. And the conflict that marked his final years might have been attempts by others — perhaps the Papal throne itself — to secure the artifact for themselves.

As lightly as she broached these ideas, however, Doctor Gauci of the museum had treated them coldly. She moved the conversation on to safer domains, such as the 16th-century history of the Knights of Malta, and the excellent architecture and Mannerist details famed Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar had invested the museum building with.

"Unfortunately our collection is exceeding the Auberge de Provence," Doctor Gauci sighed. "The fine arts collection was moved out in 1974. And despite the extensive renovation we finished only a few years ago, we will need more space for our planned acquisition and display of Bronze Age and Punic artifacts."

* * *

Lara ended the interview there, lest it grow acrimonious. But as she left the museum, a startling quick train of thought took her. "If the Tears of Horus had come into the hands of a Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, could it be that the way it was spirited out of Malta was known to a select few of the order? Perhaps even hinted to their architect Cassar?"

She stopped on the wide street, the sounds of the Great Harbor behind here. And it was there, in the precise and classically-inspired details of the museum building's own baroque facade. The Falcon. Lara's lips parted. "I know where the Tears of Malta went from here," she said. "It went to Sicily, hidden in plain view — as the 1581 Tribute of the Falcon."

* * *

Catherine Langford had a neat, one-story home in a quiet suburb of Arlington. Short, twisty streets wove under a canopy of shade trees, and half the cars had access stickers or issue plates for one of the various entangled agencies that made up the Federal government.

It was a modest wood-frame, probably built in the fifties. It beat the more ostentatious pillared-walkway southern style of the larger buildings. Certainly, Monticello was a fine-looking building, but the neoclassical style of architecture always annoyed Lara just a little. You started back in the neolithic by propping logs on each other. The classical Greeks moved to stone but kept the pillar-and-lintel form, and over the years, elaborated it with all sorts of fluting and decorative capitals. And the neoclassicists kept all those millennia of cruft, though none of it had any part in holding up the building beneath it any more.

Catherine was a small, intense woman an inch shorter than Lara herself, with white hair, a friendly though no-nonsense manner, and an intelligent, penetrating gaze. The front rooms were stacked high with shipping boxes, and the dark polished wood of the shelves lining the understated living room were mostly bare. Catherine introduced her husband, Ernest, as she explained. "We've been cooped up a little long. It is high time we got out and saw something of the world."

Her husband's eye's misted over momentarily, and Catherine quickly took his hands in hers. They were very much in love, in a way that was unfamiliar to Lara. Perhaps one had just recovered from a medical emergency they had not been expected to survive. He almost clung to her, making plain that sense of fragility and the nearness of loss she felt from them.

"Sit, please," Catherine said firmly. "Ernest will find us some tea somehow, then he will join us."

"I am more than thankful for the time you are making for me," Lara said truthfully.

They made small talk as they waited for Ernest. Lara gave her opinion on a few destinations she thought would be interesting for the couple. There was a very sweet former monastery in the Sierras just north of Malaga, for instance. And it was hard to give a miss to the gemütlich little towns that crawled their way up the Bavarian Alps. Of course, how could one pass up Salzburg once one was in the area…

After Ernest had returned with tea and cakes and they had all settled again, the real interview began.

"So, Miss Croft," Catherine leaned forward. "I've heard of you, as I said in our phone call. You have a bit of a reputation in our field." The way she said it, it was clear that reputation was not entirely good.

"As did you when younger, Mrs. Langford," Lara riposted without rancor. "From when you were a student, up until the early 70's, you were rather outspoken about the idea that there was more to Pre-dynastic Egypt and the Old Kingdom than Howard Carter had ever dreamed of. Why did you stop?"

"Someone listened."

Lara waited, but that was apparently that; Catherine was not going to volunteer anything further there. "That's a lovely pendant," she said to end the silence. "Mjolnir of course. Are you Asatru?"

Catherine laughed. "No, I'm afraid I don't worship any gods these days. This is an artifact from Cimmeria. Meteoric Iron, actually. It was a gift from a former student."

The way she said "Former student" it was also clearly a half-truth at best. But the clear direct gaze of the woman also meant she wasn't going to be drawn out on that, either.

"Very well!" Lara had to laugh. She threw up her hands in a a small "I give up" gesture. "Let's talk about the Horus Jar."

"Certainly dear," replied the very sharp old lady. Very sharp indeed. "I am not sure 'jar' is the right word. The one in my collection had no opening or stopper. It was a solid piece of nearly-black mineral, perhaps a basalt. Density studies revealed no hollow inside, only a decrease in density in the interior; perhaps due to infusion of mafic impurities."

"How did you acquire it?"

"Fairly late in my collecting days. The Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm had an interest in some Viking coins I had collected back in the fifties. Back when I still believed the 'Vikings in Maine' stories. They were willing to trade for some obscure and unclassifiable Egyptologia donated the the museum by Gustav Hallstrom, brother of Ivor Thord-Gray."

"Ah, yes. The Swedish-born archeologist and adventurer. I'd heard of him."

"Mercenary would be another word. He fought in several wars before moving to the United States, where he naturalized in the 30's. Oddly enough, he went into politics and was working for the Governor in Florida. He had quite a bit of money, too."

Lara did not miss the dig, but she let it go without being unduly upset by it. A Swedish mercenary, she thought. Swedish troops had looted the collection of the last of the Holy Roman Emperors — could this be how the one-time Tribute of Malta had made its way into Catherine Langford's hands? For that matter, did the Libyan-backed attempt to steal it back mean that the twin in Gadaffi's hands had been lost — or finally run out of juice?

The Holy Roman Emperors (which brought to mind Voltaire's acerbic quote; "Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.") The Tribute had originally gone to Charles V in his role as King of Sicily, but by 1581 Charles had long abdicated and Sicily was a much different place. It wasn't impossible, especially given how cozy the largely-related Kings of Europe had been with each other, that a falcon or two had ended up with the current Holy Roman Emperor — who would be then Rudolf II.

Ruldolf II; occultist, friend of John Dee and Nostradamus, early scientist, and owner of the largest Cabinet of Curiosities in Europe. Perhaps within that collection had been material that explained the true purpose of the Tears of Horus.

* * *

They finished the interview there. Lara thanked Catherine for her time, and for being such an excellent host, and she wished her hosts the best on their coming travels. But then she turned. "Catherine," she said. "I wish we could have been more open with each other. There are so few of us who know of and work to uncover the deep secrets of archaeology."

Catherine was silent for only a moment. She was not going to change her mind, but she needed to find the words for what she needed to say. "I don't approve of your methods, Lara, but…I accept the necessity. There is a hidden world out there, and it is as you well know a dangerous one. I haven't told anyone you were coming," she added. "But please be careful, dear. Above all…don't be rash."

Lara didn't think of herself as rash. But on the other hand, there had to be some reasons why her expeditions were much less grids of string and lots of small brushes, and much more explosions and lots of screaming.

She bid the couple bon voyage and returned to the cab she had left with the meter running. The driver appeared sound asleep with his hat tipped over his eyes.

Before she even had a chance to tap him on the shoulder both rear doors opened up and two men slid in on either side of her, boxing her in. One a professional military or mercenary type in leather jacket and sunglasses, the other a massive and menacing man with a somewhat incongruous woolen cap.

"Start talking," the military type said. "Who do you work for, and what is your interest in Catherine Langford?"

Drat. Langford had warned her, plain as day. Maybe she hadn't told anyone Lara was coming, but that wasn't the same thing as saying they didn't know she was there. "You were watching the house," she said brightly. "You don't sound very Libyan to me."

"We'll ask the questions here," the military type said. Lara didn't quite catch it, but it seemed to her the giant mook rolled his eyes at that. He might be smarter than that type usually was. "The Falcon — you work for him?"

"Are we playing Sam Spade here?" Lara asked. "Because I think it's time I gave you the bird."

She elbowed the giant mook, hard. He doubled over more quickly than she expected. Then she reached over him, popped the door and they both rolled out on to the pavement. The mook was rolling over, clutching his abdomen in pain; obviously hors du combat.

The other man was _fast_. He'd gone for his gun the moment she hit his buddy, and if she hadn't rolled when she hit she would be dead already. He was firing fast and he was shooting to kill. Lara rolled quickly around to front of the cab, the open door partial cover for her sprint to the next car down. Odd. What had changed? They weren't interested in talking any more; they were determined to take her down.

The front door of the cab popped open and the man inside scrambled out all knees and elbows, looking like a startled jack-rabbit. "Daniel!" The military type shouted. "Zat her, now!"

"I don't have the zat!" the third man shouted back. He did have a pistol, and was holding it in a good Weaver stance pointing directly at her. But he hesitated.

"Daniel!" the other man shouted. He kicked his way out the right door and drew down on Lara. But the pause had been enough; she'd darted from parked car to the cover of the ornamental shrubbery around one of the more impressive houses in the neighborhood. The first man swore and headed after her. "Daniel, see to Teal'c!"

* * *

The massive Jaffa was sprawled on the pavement of the quiet residential street, pain crowding his often-impassive features. He struggled to speak. "Daniel Jackson," he gasped.

"I'm here, Teal'c. Help is on the way."

The giant clutched his arm. "You must…tell…O'Neill. That was not…the Cha-Mak blow. She is not…one of the false gods."

"You sure?" Daniel asked. Teal'c said nothing. "Jack!" he raised his voice.

The military man was already heading back towards them. "That girl's a sprinter," he said. "Lost her at the corner of that white elephant there. He dropped down by his friend. "How's Junior?"

"We will survive, O'Neill. Do not concern yourself."

"You sure?" He held the large man's eyes for a long moment. "Okay," he stood and brushed off his palms. "Daniel, you see to Catherine. We need to take the hardware and clear out before Arlington's Finest come by."

* * *

Daniel Jackson, Lara thought. Doctor Daniel Jackson, iconoclastic archaeologist with a speciality in Old Dynasty Egypt. Interesting. She though she'd recognized his face while he'd been hesitating in shooting her in hers. But now the others had confirmed the name. She'd heard the entire conversation from her perch.

After the cars drove off, and when the police sirens were still comfortably distant, she lowered herself from the gables, grasped the decorative lintel, hand-over-handed to one of the fat ionic-order pillars, and slid down to the ground.

Perhaps there was something to be said for Neo-classicism after all.


	3. Chapter 3

And it's time to bite the big four-sided bullet. I just had to send her to Giza — and down to the Valley of Kings. In doing a little desultory research, I was surprised to find out how much archeology students like (and openly admit to being inspired by) Tomb Raider. And respect the attention to authentic details. Well…at least by the Art Department!

Again, I neither own nor make claim on any rights to Tomb Raider or SG1 or any of the characters and situations thereof. In addition, half of what I'm writing, even I know is wrong (and I know hardly anything). Continuity in both universes is going to take a beating before I'm done, but that's nothing compared to the mess I'm making of "our" world…

And, yes, I'm being a little cagey about who any of these people really are. The joke is, SGC looks like a typical Lara Croft enemy from here. And Lara looks a little odd to them…particularly when they start putting some observations together. Which means we have to slowly discover both, as the narrative unfolds.

* * *

Andrews AFB, 38°48′N 076°52′W

* * *

"Daniel, what was that?" Colonel Jack O'Neill was _not_ happy. He was starting into the best dressing-down he could give to a man who was nominally under his command, civilian scientist though he might be.

"Jack, what was that?" Daniel Jackson wasn't buying. "I thought we were going to ask some questions. What was I supposed to do, shoot her?"

"I thought she was Goa'uld. For crying out loud, she took down Teal'c with one blow to the symbiote!"

"Your concern is appreciated, O'Neill." The huge, golden-skinned man, looking a bit like an idol from an ancient temple himself, broke in. "I am unharmed. She merely surprised me."

"Surprised you, right," the Colonel said.

"She is not Goa'uld, Jack O'Neill. I sensed no symbiote in her." The powerfully-built man reflected for a moment before continuing. "She is much stronger than I believe is normal for Tau'ri." Another studied moment, then he allowed himself a smile. "She is a worthy adversary."

"She…" the Colonel's eyebrows crawled up into his hairline. "She…why, you old devil!"

"I am not a devil, O'Neill. I am Jaffa."

"Anyhow, not Goa'uld. I know. I figured that out on my own," the Colonel ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. "Those snakes are arrogant, but not that arrogant. She'd have never gotten into that cab with us."

"Look, the point is, Catherine knew her." The lanky archaeologist pointed vaguely, either in the general direction of the District of Columbia, or to wherever Catherine Langford's flight was currently. "You decided to push her. She, ah…she pushed back. Anyhow, she's a known person," he moved on. "Has an estate in London and everything. What I think, is I should just…"

"No, Daniel."

"But we're both in archaeology! If I just talk to her…"

"I said no, Daniel. Leave her be. My gut says she didn't know any more about the bombing in London than we do. She was just sniffing around. We're going back to work. If there's any leaks left here, the NID will handle it."

* * *

"The NID? Are you sure?" Lara spoke openly, knowing Zip's cryptographic software protected their exchange.

"I didn't mean they were at the door. I meant if you drill too deep past the Official Secrets umbrella in the States, you hit a layer of NID that's lit up like a plasma wall. Don't mess with those guys, Lara."

"I'll take that under advisement," Lara told him with grave amusement. "Now tell me everything you've found on Doctor Daniel Jackson."

"The guy who pulled a gun on you. Doctor, right. What kind of archaeologist carries a gun?"

Alister leaned into the pickup of the camera. "Our employer carries a gun," he said.

"Bad example," Zip was dismissive. "I don't know what this guy is now, Lara, but everything I see tells me he's bad news. He dropped out of sight in 1979. Last thing he did in the public eye was get booed out of a lecture where he was going on about Pyramids and spaceships — real Ancient Astronaut stuff."

"I'd read his papers before," Lara's research assistant butted in again. "Published only in the worst of fringe journals, of course. One unique argument he had was that the pyramids themselves were designed as landing pads for some sort of massive, hollow, alien spacecraft."

The wiry assistant pushed his glasses back with a forefinger and continued in his too-good-to-be-true Public School accent, "An interesting idea to be sure, but it fails for me on simple engineering grounds. Morse taper, you know of them? To get a good mating surface, the pyramid and the hollow spacecraft need an identical taper. Otherwise you are just making a single point of contact and you're wasting a lot of good stone."

"I thought that was a whole pyramid thing," Zip, the computer genius, put in. "The perfect mathematical form and stuff."

"The Bent Pyramid of Snefuru," Alister retorted. "The Ancient Egyptians were tinkering with the formula all the way up through Kufu. Most of that Pyramid Math stuff is Von Danikan crap. Anyhow, there's nothing in the literature linking Daniel Jackson with Catherine Langford."

"Nothing but captured video," Zip shot back, smugly. "The States are nothing on London, but I've got enough pictures proving those two knew each other. Recently, too."

"Good," Lara said. "Keep working on that. And what about the past? Did Catherine ever do field work?"

"You nailed it in one," Alister said.

"Jeeza," Zip said across him.

"What?" Lara and Alister both asked.

"Jeeza. That's where she was. Way, way back before the war. Before World War II even."

"Zip," Alister let out a long-suffering sigh. "It's pronounced 'Giza.'"

"Hey, do I look Egyptian to you?"

"Well, according to some theories…" Alister let that trail off, then turned back to the camera. "I can start inquiries after formal permits with the Supreme Council of Antiquities," he said half-hopefully."

"If you are right," Lara shook her head, "That will just alert those spooks of Zip's. I think I'd rather be a little more circumspect."

Which, Alister suspected, was just the way she liked it.

* * *

Next she was on VOIP with Massouf the Thoof, the man with his fingers in more pies in the black market than anyone else in Cairo. If the Mubarak regime actually had nukes, Massouf would be the man who could sell you one. As it was, he was _the_ middle-man if you were looking for the right people to broker anything from stolen antiquities to a fully-armed F16. He was also scrupulously honest. He'd gotten his nickname when a disgruntled customer with unrealistic expectations had started to call him, "A coward, a charlatan and a thief…" Massouf hit him in the middle of his tirade, turning the last word into "Thoof!" And it stuck.

"This is top stuff, very classified. I can tell you more but you are going to owe me."

"I don't _want_ to owe you, Massouf. You can take cash. I can afford it."

"Oh, be reasonable. The kinds of favors I need are the kind of work you are best at. So I get paid, you get to do what you love doing, and both of us get access to a new crop of interesting items."

"Giza," Lara was noncommittal.

"Old Professor Langford spent most of his career on the Giza Plateau. Real Howard Carter stuff — this was near the turn of the century. His daughter was out there playing with the potsherds in the late twenties, when they hit something big. Not in the necropolis proper, though; South of there, all the way on the other side of the Ring Road. And there's still something there…but you really need to see it for yourself."

"I don't have time for 'show me.' I can't just fly out to exotic destinations on a whim. Why don't you tell me what you found instead?"

"Well, I can't, quite. This is where that favor comes in…"

* * *

Sahara Desert, 29°89′N 31°14′E

* * *

Giza was noisy and crowded. Cars and pedestrians fought for space in the narrow streets and the air was yellow with dust and pollution. The Giza Plateau was of course filled with tourists. There'd been a bit of a fall-off during the continuing unrest, particular since the massacre of a group of tourists at Deir el-Bahri, but it was still a major industry.

The necropolis was basically in the suburbs of the sprawling metropolis that connected through Cairo and extended all the way to the coast. Outside of the narrow cultivated stripe of the Nile, however, the population fell off remarkably.

Lara and Massouf were lying on a slight rise in an otherwise undistinguished alluvial plain, all sand-colored with hardly a scrap of even the hardy desert vegetation to be seen. If it weren't for the contrails of airplanes overhead it could have been another planet. Well, that and the sprawl of buildings behind a rusty but solid-looking barbed wire fence.

"What are we looking at?"

Massouf was a short, sturdy man with a wide engaging smile. He dressed casually in Western style, and was currently getting rather dusty. "Munitions plant," he said. "Well, mostly explosives for industry. There's a phosphate mine some ways from here down that rail line. Most of the materials come from AFC, though, up in Abu Qir; Nitric acid is energy-intensive to manufacture."

"That explains the fences."

"They also have a contract here and there with the Egyptian Army."

"And that explains the guards."

"The whole complex is several square kilometers. Good business practice to keep your explosives widely separated. Not all the facilities are active; some of the buildings go back to the First World War."

Lara studied the scene through her binoculars. "I see temporary structures and shade awnings. That's an active dig over there, the Northwest corner. Late in the season for that; they're probably cleaning up the site now and won't resume work until winter."

"They've been at it for years, mostly just scrubbing around on the surface sifting sand."

"They don't seem to have made a lot of progress."

"There's a lot of sand. Come this way, Miss Croft — there's a place my sources tell me you can see into the pit from."

They crawled backwards, stood and brushed off their clothes. Lara was in her working outfit, which wasn't that much unlike what a student (with good sunblock) might wear on a dig. The sun was lowering and the winds already kicking up. Not that they ever really stopped, not in this quarter of the Sahara.

From the rock formation Massouf had pointed out the result of the years of "scrubbing around on the surface" was made visible.

"That's some excavation," Lara commented softly.

"This is where the Langford expedition was in 1928. I wanted you to see the old excavation before I showed you this." Massouf withdrew a small manilla envelope from his pocket and extracted a print.

"Most unusual." Lara studied the photograph. "From the shovel and crates in frame, I'd say the central stone disk was a good five meters in diameter. Some of those markings are hieroglyphic — but the others are completely new to me." She turned the print at a slight angle, studied one edge. "This is cartridge film. When was it taken?"

"1939," Massouf answered. "While they were loading the Coverstone for shipment. That and the other artifact went on the freighter _Achilles,_ bound for America." He shrugged in apology. "Security was very tight then. The Egyptian workers seem to have been unable to smuggle out a picture of the other thing. But the descriptions they left are of an extremely heavy ring of some dark metal. The United States Military was involved in throwing a cover over the whole dig, and it was moved out of the country before the war got here."

"The Coverstone," Lara repeated the word, looking at the lone photograph again. "That cartouche in the center. I'm a little rusty on some of the characters, but I'd translate that as 'Gate of Stars.' I'd really love to see what the thing under it looked like."

* * *

After darkness had fallen Lara went inside the fence. She was wearing her pistols now. She would rather not get in a shoot-out with military people of an allied nation, but she needed to leave her options open. The buildings around the Northwest end of the munitions plant looked to have been closed for years, if not decades. There were sufficient warning signs on them to make her hope she wouldn't have to pry inside. They might have ceased work, but that didn't mean they weren't chock-full of old sweaty dynamite, mouldering piles of oh-so-sensitive fulminates, and fragile containers of things with wonderful chemical names that suggested way too many fluorine bonds to be stable; evocative names like dioxygen difluoride, more commonly (even onomatopoeially) known as "FOOF."

Between a few crawls through shadow and a few brisk rolls where the shadows were less obliging, Lara got to the rim of the old excavation. There she unpacked the laser, and connected the satellite phone that would let the Iridium network carry the sensor data back to Zip's computers.

"I'll have a complete 3d map of this place done in a couple of minutes," Zip told her.

"Try not to alert any guards, though. I know running gun battles through falling-apart wooden buildings full of high explosives is your idea of a fun night out, but…"

"Enough, Alister," Lara smiled tightly. "Or I might just stop using this headset."

The invisible beam of the IR laser licked out across the old excavations first started by Professor Langford, the photocell logging distance and direction as it went.

"There's evidence of later work expanding the scope of the original expedition," Lara didn't bother with her recorder, instead dictating into the headphone mic. "Several exploratory pits, but the expansion is shallow. There doesn't appear to have been any extensive necropolis. From the depths of the sand, I'd say this was intentional burial."

Massouf's sources had said several minor artifacts had shown up on the market during the original excavations, presumably snuck off site by workers or grabbed by the ever-vigilant looters during unguarded moments. Most of the artifacts had related to Ra, but that was unsurprising; the sun god had been massively popular through the Fifth Dynasty out to the coming of the Romans. These were no burial goods, though; they seemed mostly small personal items, the sort that might be carried by travelers.

Unlike most archaeologists of the period, Langford had left the artifact in situ for several years. Of course, from Massouf's accounts it had also been an engineering challenge to wrest it from the pit. It wasn't implausible that the archaeologist had requested aid from the Army Corps of Engineers for that task. But that still wasn't sufficient reason for the US government to have gotten involved, and have taken the artifact out of the country.

"Alister?" She had a thought. "Assume the ring is as heavy as Massouf's sources described, with the dimensions indicated by the cover stone. What kind of material would we be talking about?"

Her research assistant worked for a little, apparently scratching out numbers on a sheet of paper. "This can't be right," he said at last.

"Give."

"I had to make some assumptions on the thickness and width of the ring. The first set of assumptions I tried, I came up with 22 gm/cm^3. That's ridiculous. But even when I adjust my assumptions, I can't get out of the metals. I think those workmen were exaggerating."

"Could it be that dense, Alister? I was thinking perhaps it was a heavy metal. That would be enough to want to get it away from the Axis powers."

"Miss Croft, that number I quoted isn't beryllium or tantalum. It would be well beyond that, out into the Island of Stability."

Lara laughed. "I won't pretend I understand what that means, but let's drop that idea. We obviously don't have the data we need."

"Speaking of data…" Zip broke in.

"Thank you." Lara put away her gear. "Now if you will permit me, boys, I have a table waiting at Sabaya."

* * *

"Any luck?" Massouf asked when she returned to the rental car. He was relieved when she put her guns back in the pack.

"Perhaps." Lara was non-committal.

"You aren't the first person to go enquiring after the Langfords, you know," he volunteered as he slid behind the wheel. "Had a handful of Russians about a year ago. Not gangsters; these were Foreign Intelligence Service, straight out of Yasenevo. Smart boys, too. They found this place and poked around for a week. As far as I know they didn't find anything."

He made the turn from a dusty, rutted trail to a branch road that was very little more than a dusty, rutted trail. "Then there were those Chinese spies. I sent them out into the Rub' al Khali."

"I thought you always gave fair value."

"I did. Typical Chinese Intelligence — they paid me in counterfeit money. So I gave them a counterfeit map."

"So." Lara gave it a long pause. "My half of the bargain."

Massouf looked uncomfortable, perhaps the first time she'd seen him do so. "This is not entirely business. I need help on what you might call a personal matter."

"Go on." Lara made her reply as neutral as she could.

"A friend of the family. A young man, a student at Cairo University. He was working as a digger when he died. Under somewhat mysterious circumstances. The spot where his body was found seemed to be nothing but the rubble from 19th Dynasty workman's huts…until this year, when Dr. Schaden of the University of Memphis uncovered KV63 under those huts."

Massouf gripped the wheel and shrugged under his linen jacket. "Miss Croft, it is my belief something happened inside that tomb. And the Supreme Council of Antiquities is running too tight a ship these days — particularly with Talaa'al al-Fateh running about — for me to poke around personally."

"In 'there'," Lara said. "You said KV63. That's a designation for excavations in the Valley of Kings!" Which was only the most tourist-inspected, tightly-guarded, and otherwise completely exposed location outside of The Sphinx itself.

"I can get you in," Massouf said. "Your problem is going to be finding whatever it was inside that killed my friend."


	4. Chapter 4

This tale takes place in some nebulous place between 2001 and 2006 — the air or release dates for each property — but I'm being selective in what I admit to the continuity. As for our world, the two admirals are real, as is Dr. Gauci, although he is in the wrong job (and I hope he forgives me.)

Zahi Hawass, however, needs no apologies from me. You can hardly get to be more of a public figure than starring in a Reality TV show ("Chasing Mummies" in 2011). Zahi was too good not to use in this story, but he throws into relief the problem of reconciling the Stargate universe and real archaeology: both the science, and the people in it. I can't imagine either that Zahi wouldn't know, or that he wouldn't do anything about, the Stargate removed from Giza.

Egypt has changed quite a bit in the last few years. But so, really, has the rest of the world. Anyhow, next chapter, I promise, we'll finally get to the exotic and far-off land of Colorado.

* * *

The Valley of Kings, 25.44°N 32.36°E

* * *

Lara was getting tired of sand. It would make a nice change, she thought, to do some work in a sunken temple sometime. Or snow. Although you would think she'd seen enough snow for a lifetime, having walked out of the Himalayas alone at nine years old.

But this was the Valley of Kings: practically where it had all started. Napoleon's men had poked around these digs. Centurions had scratched the Roman equivalent of "Kilroy was here" on exposed walls. The discoveries that had inflamed a public interest in the ancient world, an interest that still continued today, were made here (and further along the Nile). It was here, too, that archaeology began the gradual shift from the mere collection of exotica for a Cabinet of Curiosities, to the meticulous recording of matrix and context, and the layers of analysis and meta-analysis as archeology evolved into a real science.

Not that the popular aspects had ever quite left the craft. A television crew with their reflectors, boom mics, and shiny boxes of technical gear were clustered around the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities as he hammed it up in front of the unprepossessing entrance of KV63. Dr. Otto Schaden and his team lurked in the background, looking surprisingly good-natured about the whole thing.

"You'll do fine with Zahi," Massouf had promised her. "Didn't you used to work with Whitman?"

"Worked with? That would be an overstatement."

"Zahi's the same kind of publicity hound. And the other kind of hound. He is an Egyptian man, if you understand what I mean."

"I understand perfectly what you mean. And in my experience, that behavior transcends national boundaries. Why am I meeting with him?"

"Because he runs archaeology here like a private fief. You dig if Zahi lets you. You publish when Zahi tells you. Or you don't work in Egypt," Massouf said.

"He's also done a great deal of good," Lara countered. "The restoration projects at Saqqara and elsewhere. He's put a real damper on the stolen antiquities trade. And he's been leaning on Berlin to return Nefertiti. More than that, he's been tireless in getting more Egyptians into archaeology, and making it less of a private game for Europeans."

The new discovery was smack between Amenmesse and Tutankhamun, practically in the middle of the main tourist causeway down the center of the Valley. The foundations of the 19th-Dynasty workman's huts were low, meandering walls of small slate-like stones. The great white slab that had first attracted attention framed a vertical shaft into the new discovery.

According to Alistair, however, there had been an earlier clue. Right at the beginning of the decade the Amarna Royal Tombs Project had mapped the valley with ground penetrating radar. Unfortunately the director of the project had been accused in a antiquities smuggling case. Zahi's office had cleared him of all wrong-doing but the potential discoveries had been lost in the shuffle.

Or maybe not.

Unlike a typical tomb, the shaft had not been backfilled. Either that, or tomb robbers had dug their way in ages ago. All that had been required was to shift a single 200-kilogram block before Doctor Schaden had been able to shine a flashlight down into the depths of the tomb. The passage was a good 2/3 filled with the debris of the passing years, but there was enough room for a determined explorer to wriggle their way to whatever had been within.

Which Massouf's friend just might have done — weighing condemnation by the SCA for exploring without permission against what Zahi was even now touting as the possible tomb of Queen Kiya, birth mother of Tutankhamun.

Of course, this didn't explain how Tawfic's crushed body had been found _outside_ the tomb; unless gravity had chosen to reverse at an unfortunate moment and he had fallen back _up_ through the access shaft! Not to mention that someone would have had to shove the massive block back into position across the tomb's mouth after escaping, and the only person Lara had heard of with that habit had worked about eight hundred kilometers to the Northeast. And would be two thousand years old by now.

"Lara Croft!" Zahi turned with a big smile on his face.

Lara walked up to him, noticing the cameras focusing on her as well. "You are just as I pictured you," the Secretary General beamed in approval. Then his face fell in comic dismay. "But where are your guns?"

"Dr. Hawass!" Lara protested. "What kind of an archeologist carries a gun?"

"_Indy_ carries a gun," Zahi pronounced firmly.

And that's when Lara got it. Zahi was famous for leveraging the Indiana Jones mystique, up to wearing his similar-looking signature hat when working (the same hat was available in the museum gift shop). It was all part of his campaign to make archaeology interesting again and bring more tourists to the Giza Plateau. That, and the cult of popularity did hid no harm, either. Lara had heard he even had a line of signature clothing (the explorer-chic of jeans and work-shirts and leather jackets) coming to the Fleet Street shops some day soon. Not to mention the money he made with books, interviews, and his own reality television show.

And that's why he'd bend the rules, and let an outsider like her be part of opening a new tomb in the Valley. Because he was also willing to let a little Lara Croft rub off on him. The Lara Croft of the articles and books (which she'd had ghost-written) before she realized she didn't need the money and the publicity was potentially dangerous for her chosen line of work.

Well, she wasn't above using the tools at hand either, even if one of those tools included letting the cameras linger on her crop top and leather shorts.

"Lady Croft carries a signature pair of matched automatics in the field," he explained to his crew. He mimed a "pow, pow" bit of two-hand shooting. "Is it true," he addressed this to her, "that you fended off a Bengal Tiger once with just your pistols?"

Lara laughed shortly. "The books exaggerate a little." It had actually been a hunting pair, established man-killers both. But she had still felt bad about killing them.

"And discovered a new species of vampire bat in Mexico." He shuddered elaborately. "I _hate_ bats." It was a credible Indiana Jones imitation. "So." He swung back to the gathered audience. "How fortunate is it that Lady Croft is here today! For in the next few minutes, the first human beings in three thousand years are going to enter the chamber within."

Of course they'd already poked cameras in, the first moment enough stones had been cleared to form a hole. But Zahi was playing this up for the crowd.

"Now, you may be thinking that as Doctor Schaden and I enter this tomb, we should be wary of spinning blades and little spears that fly out of the walls if we walk on the wrong stone." He gave a broad wink. "Despite what you may have seen in certain movies, this is not how the New Kingdom builders worked. Tombs were defended by filling the entrances with tons of rock and dirt. And the grave robbers were inside anyhow, almost before the dust had cleared."

And it was at this point he waved Lara forward. "But there is always a first time!" he pronounced with a laugh. "So we bring an expert!" He motioned for a camera to take a close-up on his face, as he composed it to a more serious expression. "Rock falls and other accidents are always a possibility," he added soberly. "These places are very old. People could die. And perhaps this time we see a large round rock roll down a passageway towards us!"

* * *

A wooden ladder had been set up. Otto Schaden, pudgy but fit-looking with a white beard, comfortably dressed in khaki slacks and shirt worn open, led the way. Zahi followed, already sweating under his "Indy" hat, and Lara followed last, ducking under the pulley already set up for artifact retrieval (although in the usual way of things, that would follow days of _in situ_ studies first.)

It was a mere five meter climb down the shaft, then into the opened doorway into the first chamber. Cameras had already revealed the rounded shapes of more than one sarcophagus, blackened by some sort of resin or rot. It was a long clamber down the horizontal passage, as the clear space near the roof was far from high enough to permit anything but hands and knees. And then they were gazing on the contents of the first room themselves.

"This is incredible." Zahi was the first to break the silence. "Congratulations, Otto."

On first glance there were no funerary goods, and no inscriptions decorated the bare walls. At least five coffins loomed, black with resin or perhaps termite damage. Alabaster jars glowed in the lamplight like bones.

"No canopic chest or jars," Dr. Schaden observed. His voice was also hushed in reverence.

"What is your impression, Otto?"

"I think perhaps a preparation room," the older man said. "Those linen bags could be natron. The jars, too, are similar to the embalming supplies found in KV54. But these intact coffins…"

Lara knew what he was thinking. Between the ever more desperate attempts to protect their corporeal remains from grave robbers, and the political shenanigans that resulted in more than one Pharaoh having his remains scattered, his name scratched out, and his tomb re-used by another, mummies had been shifted from resting place to resting place. Sometimes they had ended up tucked into the oddest corners; shifted to unmarked sarcophagi in a tiny bare tomb was not an impossible place to find even so major a figure as Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh.

"Otto, Otto, here!" Zahi said, so excited he could barely form words. In the shadow of the larger coffins was a small, child-sized one. And even through the coating of black it was visibly gold. This was the other side, then, of the man some called "The Pharaoh," and Lara suddenly liked him a lot more. For all the bombast, he really cared so deeply for the past he curated and the discoveries he helped make possible. It reminded her of her own love of archaeological discovery — a love she had sometimes forgot in her recent quests for answers. It was a child-like wonder she saw in Zahi, and she smiled in memory.

* * *

It was the dig at Makimuku; a word the child delighted in saying. Near Nara, it was, a place already filled with wonder. Lara had travelled enough with her parents to have no fear of strangers, and these tiny polite people were always smiling at her. The famed Nara deer frightened her, though; they were scruffy-looking, aggressive animals in search of easy handouts. But the woods were incredible with mist twining about the ancient trees and the tall forests of bamboo. And there was the river festival, with little boats floating down stream, each holding a candle like an entire night sky on the move.

They were staying on site, in temporary buildings as elegant and as complete with every necessity as the tiny efficient Japanese apartments. The previous day she'd visited Todai-ji, where she had marveled at the great cast bronze Buddha, familiarly known as Daibutsu. Today her parents had expected her to sleep in, but instead she was up early to help sift: to sift through a cart full of tailings that was sitting right outside her bedroom.

It was the tiniest flash of green, in the pink morning light that filtered through the surrounding hills. She fished for it with already grubby fingers then, already the professional, reached for a soft bristle brush to gently free it from the matrix of encrusted river sand.

It was the most exquisite little jade pendant. Shaped a bit like Ouroboros, the snake that ate its own tail, and a little more like the magatama beads — half of a Yin/Yang symbol — that had first appeared in the Jomon period, it was both beautiful and obscure. In following months, she and her parents had tried to date it, tried to pin down the period and style, and failed. Given the much more recent period of the subject of their digs, it fell into that peculiar classification that only fringe archaeologists - and non-archaeologists - used; the "OOPArt" or "Out-of-Place Artifact." Meaning it was just as likely something dropped by a recent visitor to Nara, and of no archaeological significance, as it was to belong to the Yayoi period.

But none of that mattered. She strung her little bit of jade on a string and wore it proudly as a necklace. And every time she held it, even in her darkest moments of self-doubt, she remembered the excitement and pride as she had run to her parents clutching it, still in her penguin-print pajamas.

It was her first find. She had been five years old.

* * *

The two senior archaeologists were starting to discuss the best procedures for recording and _in situ_ conservation of the more fragile finds as excavation of KV63 continued. But Lara was feeling something of that sixth sense she'd developed about such places. Her attention went, in time, to the roughly-finished south wall.

"Doctors?" she said. "That's not a shadow."

"Eh?" Zahi saw it first, but soon Otto was nodding as well. "There's a recess there. Possibly shallow. Possibly a window to an adjoining chamber. Our lights don't reach back that far. We'll have to get a ladder in here."

"I can reach it."

They consulted for just a moment. "Nadia will kill us," Zahi said. He meant Nadia Lokma, the Chief Conservator. "Go now and make haste," he told Lara.

She needed no further urging. She leaped lightly to the edge and pulled herself up until she could look within the narrow shadowed rectangle. "It seems to go through," she reported.

"Go," Zahi said. "I will follow."

"I won't," Doctor Schaden said. "My surgery. Please, be gentle. Don't let the conservators be more angry than they will be already."

Lara pulled up. She could barely wriggle into the gap. She didn't believe the others would make it until this opening was enlarged. She triggered her light, but already she could tell something was different. The stone here was smooth, exceptionally flat even by the high standards of Egyptian stone dressers. The mail-box slot continued for ten meters or so, then opened up. The change in the reflected sound of her own breathing told her that this was a new chamber, a much larger one. Or, at least, a deeper one.

She stood. And then realized her mistake. The ledge she had reached had but a narrow flat spot, with the rest both polished and slanting sharply down. Her boots were already sliding down the incline. She swiveled, casting her light around in a desperate arc, and as the black edge all too rapidly approached, crouched and then leaped out into space…

* * *

"Enter!" Hammond shuffled the papers back into the folder and closed it, turning it face down on the desk so not even the label would be visible to his visitor. A habit born of too many classified documents: this particular folder concerned the efforts to get a soda machine or two installed into the lower levels. Which was more complicated than it might be, considering it put into conflict the need of the vendor to personally tend and restock their machines, and the needs of the Air Force to keep random civilians far from the Gate Room.

"Thank you, General." Doctor Janet Frasier was in efficiency mode, a white lab coat over her Air Force blues. "You wanted a report on our progress in finding a defense to that gas of Hathor's."

"I thought we agreed we were never going to speak of that incident again," a voice whined from behind her.

"Do you mind, Colonel?" Hammond was good-humored, but he meant it.

"General, please let him stay. He was one of the victims, after all."

Colonel Jack O'Neill drifted the rest of the way into the room. As usual, he was wearing fatigues — General Hammond didn't think he'd seen O'Neill in Service Dress once, outside of funerals and promotions.

"I've spoken with Teal'c about this," Janet Frasier continued her report as if no interruption had occurred. "He says this sort of attack is not uncommon. Some Goa'uld are even known for it; Setesh and Heru-ur, among others. The source is usually synthetic; it appears Hathor was either using a hidden mechanism, or had genetically modified herself in order to project a weaker form of the usual gas."

"In either case, eww."

"And?" General Hammond prompted.

"Well, Sir, my first line of enquiry seems to have met an impasse," the Chief Medical Officer of Stargate Command said, a little displeased with herself. "We need to recreate the drug before we can formulate an antidote. My belief is that it is an organic extract. Doctor Jackson suggests the Goa'uld may have made use of medicinal plants, possibly genetically engineered, that are no longer native to this world."

"Would an extract work as well, Doctor?"

"Again, eww."

This time Hammond gave him a look that said that O'Neill was not getting away with any behavior. He would be permitted only so much, and no more. Then he turned back to his Chief Medical Officer in expectation.

"Yes, of course," Janet said, only the look in her eyes revealing the impatience. "If you happen to capture Hathor, or Setesh, then by all means let me know and I will obtain a sample for analysis. In any case," she continued so smoothly it almost hid the way she was putting the train back on the tracks, "the contextual evidence provided by Teal'C and Doctor Jackson suggests this is but one compound of a large interrelated family. There may be useful medicinal drugs to be discovered here as well."

"Interesting, Doctor," Hammond said. "Please keep me posted."

"General!" a new voice came at that moment. "Sir!"

"Well hello, Carter," the Colonel greeted the latest. "Come to join the party?"

Hammond sighed. "This is an office, not a train station."

"Sir!" Samantha Carter blinked. "It's happened again. A big one this time; almost thirty minutes!"

* * *

Lara leaped. And her fingers closed on a narrow rail high in the polished stone walls. She gasped, now completely aware of the pit that opened up beneath her. This was most unlike the New Kingdom. "This is getting interesting," she said to herself.

At least getting back would be easy. But as she'd come this far, it made just as much sense to go forward. She traversed, then, hand by hand. The sheer stone was too slick to get a good grip for her boots, so in violation of all accepted practice of rock climbing she was suspended by fingertips only. Fortunately, she had strong fingers.

At last she was past the central pit and could drop back down. This new chamber was flat and polished and unusually square. It was as if, three thousand years ago, someone had told the stone-cutters above to stop work just as they were smoothing the chamber now filled with embalming supplies, and proceeded to cut a geometrically perfect inner tomb in secret within the other.

A skittering sound alerted her. A giant scorpion, almost luminous in a pale waxy yellow. Lara recognized the general species at once. A deathstalker, one of the most poisonous scorpions of North Africa and the Middle East. Except this one was a troglobiont, completely blind, near pigment-less. And of excessive size, especially considering how little food must filter down here.

She could see the sensitive antenna quiver. Down here in still air, it hardly needed eyes to find her. And it was hunting. Nor was it alone; Lara could hear the subtle rustling and skittering sounds coming from other parts of the room as well.

Now Lara regretted not having her guns. She could only move quickly, and keep them from closing in on her. And that meant she had little leisure to explore the hidden chamber.

It was bare of decoration, save for a ring of metal seemingly inset into the floor; a decoration complicated but geometric, with no recognizable symbols or any other artistic meaning apparent. The chamber itself was almost as bare of content; a single canopic jar, with the seal broken and lying nearby, and a low stone block marked along the top with highly simplified hieroglyphics.

Lara studied the latter quickly. They formed no phrases, instead seeming to be short words in individual groups. She was unsurprised to see the falcon, once again. The dust had been disturbed here, and not that many years ago. She reached out to brush off the falcon…and light glowed from deep within the stone, lighting up the deeply incised lines.

"The falcon…but then could this be…but is it a mechanism?" Lara's mind was flashing. She reached out again, more deliberately, touching several symbols in order. At the last moment she caught herself, and instead of following the order that would spell out "Horus," she chose the alternate arrangement that appeared to spell out "Hodur."

An invisible seam opened and a tray slid out from one side.

The deathstalkers were very close now. Lara stamped one boot, giving them a moment's pause. Then she scooped up the black snake-like object within the hidden tray before leaping to the top of the stone herself. One last look, and she was jumping towards the same ledge she had followed on the way in. As straightforward as it was, she wanted to complete that traverse before the scorpions chose to follow her.

* * *

Otto Schaden had already retreated to the surface by the time Lara wriggled back through the narrow slot in the stone wall. Zahi was visibly relieved to see her unharmed.

"Doctor Hawass." Lara spoke more formally than her usual brusque manner. "There is a second chamber. It goes back roughly twenty meters, but there is a dangerous drop-off directly behind the window. The end of the chamber is almost unadorned and does not fit the pattern of anything we've seen in the Valley before. There are also poisonous insects in the chamber. I chose to remove one artifact for study now rather than wait for the steps necessary to safely explore the chamber properly."

She brought the thing out. It was a compact z-shaped object in a dark resin-like material, looking vaguely like a serpent folded tightly on to its own tail. Her fingers found the indent she had discovered before; with an mechanical click and a clearly electronic whine it unfolded sharply like a cobra rearing back ready to strike.

"What, what? What is this thing…you found this thing?" Zahi stumbled back. Then in a flash the famous Zahi temper was on him. "Why do you show this thing to me, this child's toy!"

"Doctor, it is not a toy!"

"I know it is not a toy!" The senior archaeologist made the 180 without the slightest change in his angry tirade. "It is a thing, a thing which it does not belong! Why do you bring this out here, why to this serious dig do you find such things!"

Lara found herself getting cross in return. This is what her father had faced, when he dared go beyond the limits of the accepted archaeological reconstructions. "It is real, Doctor, it is dangerous, and it is part of our past!"

"It is not our past!" he shouted. "It is their past! Parasites! Ancient Astronauts! This does not belong!" He waved his arms in short, jerky motions, indicating the contents of the tomb. "This is distraction! I tell you this, people come up to me, they say, Doctor Hawass, they say, is it true the pyramids were built by aliens? And I say to them, you are stupid for saying this. The pyramids are just a pile of rocks. We do not need aliens to help us make a pile of rocks!"

His hands scrabbled, came up with a fragment of a delicate burial mask. They must have uncovered it while Lara was in the next chamber. "See this here, this thing of beauty. My people did that! Egyptian people did that! We created the art, the language, the way to water plants. Look here, we know the names of the architects who built at Giza and Saqqara. We see their statues, we see how they learned to build, slowly, over the years, making mistakes but learning. Human learning!"

He gave a sort of convulsive shrug — oddly compact, like all his gestures — and started again in a voice which was lower, but no less angry. "In France, in the south of France, is a place that is called Lascaux. On the walls of the cave are paintings and these paintings are seventeen _thousand_ years old. And you know how they paint? They spread bear fat on the stone, then they blow, with a little tiny reed, they blow powdered pigment into it like a little tiny airbrush that is seventeen thousand years old. But this is the thing I want to say. They find the pigments. They find the colors the artist was using."

Zahi sat, suddenly. His voice had gone distant, taking on that awe one felt in coming to grips with the distant past. "You think, here is a caveman, speaks like Tarzan maybe, he goes into the cave and he dabs a little here and there because he isn't really _thinking._ Not like we do. But here it is; they find these pigments and they are lined up, in order. They are _arranged_. They are _chosen._ He thinks as well as you or I. Maybe better than some of those people up there." He gestured towards the tomb entrance.

"Humans are smart. When you say we need aliens to tell us how to build, how to paint, how to water crops, you are saying our ancestors are children. Or maybe you are saying Egyptians are children, are idiots, who need outsiders to tell them how to feed themselves. And that is why I am so angry about these things like this you show me and the fools who want to see flying saucers and spacemen in helmets in everywhere where there is serious archaeology being done. My life's work is to show the past, our Egyptian past, the past of all of us. It is to be proud to be a human being. These aliens…they are just distraction."

Lara was silent for a time. "They are also a part of our past," she said at last, quietly.

"And one day we will add them to our knowledge. Not tear down everything we know and put them up instead as some sort of new gods responsible for everything good." He also paused for a time. "Put that away," he said. "Are there other OOPArt in that chamber?" he asked, simply.

"Yes." Lara was as straight-forward.

"We will proceed as normal then," Zahi made a show of straightening up, brushing off his jeans. "No more adventures. This season is over anyhow. Too hot to dig. We will record and conserve, and unbury the rest of this chamber. It will be many years before anyone needs to look at the second chamber." His eyes brightened in excitement again. "And we have seven coffins. Seven! Perhaps one still holds Queen Kiya's remains!"


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry it took so long. I got intrigued by the anthropological implications and almost set the whole chapter on 1138. And would you believe it took the blog of a Norwegian tourist to convince me that there were better story-telling alternatives than sending goons to Lara's hotel room? Pity it also meant telling yet another scene in flashback…

Incidentally, le Riad sounds really nice, and I'd totally want to stay there myself. I hope they will forgive me "telling a story" and including them in this fiction.

* * *

Unnamed: 14-23-02-12-24-36

* * *

"No, Daniel." O'Neill planted his elbows on the mahogany conference table.

"But they are a fascinating culture! Completely isolated stone-age remnants. They could tell us so much about the origins of writing, music; about the development of social structures…"

"If you didn't notice, Daniel, they weren't exactly talkative."

"Gentlemen?" General Hammond said dryly. "May we resume the debrief?"

The PXX-1138 stargate had opened on to a wet, dense, equatorial forest. The MALP had detected no signs of civilization. They might have passed up on it entirely if they hadn't noticed the area around the stargate had been kept clear.

SG1 went through that same day. The heat was stifling, and there was a lovely smell of rotting vegetation and strong jungle perfumes overlaid with a not-at-all-subtle smell of decay. The air was still and stagnant, and only the buzzing of innumerable insects broke the silence.

"We don't know this was cleared by humans, you know," Colonel O'Neill said, cradling his P90 in a way that looked nonchalant — but his eyes never ceased scanning the dense foliage surrounding them. "It could have been munched clean by some kind of animal."

"Giant caterpillars?"

"Carter, have you been staying up all night watching the Sci-Fi Channel again?"

"Well, we won't find anything by standing around here." Daniel Jackson was already walking towards the edge of the clearing. He'd only gotten ten feet before Colonel O'Neill spoke.

"Stop." The Colonel's voice was quiet, but they'd heard that tone before. He barely moved his head to take in the fourth member of their party. "Teal'c?"

The giant nodded in agreement. He had also shifted weight, subtly; although the staff still rested on the ground, it could be employed at a moment's notice. "We are being observed."

"Hello? Hell-ooo!" Daniel cupped his hands around his mouth. "We come in peace." He looked back at O'Neill and Teal'c. "They already know we're here," he shrugged.

"Carter, Teal'c." O'Neill gestured with little more than a nod of the head. The two designated team members moved out to either side of the gate and crouched, finding the best cover they could. Samantha Carter was closest to the DHD, ready to dial home if necessary.

Daniel waited — he was learning — then resumed his slow walk forwards. His hands were empty. O'Neill narrowed his eyes but accepted it; they'd run this routine before. He followed several paces behind. His own weapon was up; the sling made it very convenient for firing from the hip, and at these ranges you hardly needed even iron sights.

A bush rustled. Daniel angled towards it. O'Neill was almost but not completely certain that noise hadn't been an accident, though. He stopped moving, and started scanning. Even then he didn't quite detect the flanker that rose silently to just high enough to train a short spear on him.

The spearman all but burst into flame as Teal'c's staff blast caught him full on.

O'Neill had only a moment to think it through. He swiveled on the balls of his feet and hosed the bushes behind Carter with a long burst of P90 fire. A choked cry from the bushes told him he'd guessed right. Ambush! The activity towards the front was meant to draw them into the kill zone, while flankers came up behind.

Short spears were slashing out of the heavy, concealing foliage, moving fast enough to flash across the clearing entirely, or spang into the gate itself. Daniel was still upright, staring at the fallen spearman, and a spear embedded in his pack with a solid thunk. He crouched, then, like the rest of the team. Not that it was going to help much. There was no good cover in the clearing other than the gate itself. It had been cleared all right; clear fields of fire.

"Woomera!" Daniel hissed across to O'Neill as the spears flew overhead.

"What, they have rockets, too?" the Colonel hissed back.

"No, woomera. Like atlatl," the archeologist said. Two more spears buried themselves in the dirt between them.

"We're sitting ducks out here," the Colonel said. "Teal'c, watch our six!" he raised his voice. "We're going to try to break through on the left. Daniel, you're with me."

"Wait!" the archaeologist hissed.

"Sorry, but it has to be this way."

"Not what I meant." Daniel shook his head, exasperated with himself as he tried to get the words out. "You saw that guy Teal'c shot. Stone-age. Tribal culture. Did you notice his scars? Endemic warfare. Like Borneo or Papua New Guinea."

"Headhunters, right. I like my head right where it is, Daniel." He raised his voice again. "Carter?"

"Ready, sir!" the young major called back.

"Oh, for…! Jack, lend me your pistol."

O'Neill gave the archeologist a look, then pulled out his back-up, checked the safety, then tossed it across the path. Daniel racked the action to chamber the first round. "They don't think like an army," the archaeologist said. "They'll panic. We can drive them away from the gate." He flicked off the safety, then transferred it to his off hand as he readied his own pistol.

O'Neill was impressed despite himself. It took a lot to drive Daniel to violence, but when push came to shove, he'd shove with the best of them. "Okay," he said after a long moment. "We do it your way." He called back to the others. "We're making a stand here. Teal'c, suppressive fire. Carter, start dialing the moment we get clear." He looked back across at his companion. He smiled thinly. "Ready?"

Daniel nodded. Then in one smooth move he rolled to his feet, both pistols out. It lacked something for accuracy, but it did make an impressive amount of noise. Not, however, as much as the short, controlled bursts from the Colonel's P90.

Carter was adding to the din. After one shot and a moment's contemplation, Teal'c switched his aim and began demonstrating the principle of "crown fire" to their surrounding attackers. The volume of return fire dropped off very quickly after that. Noise and cries from the underbrush described a hurried — if not panicked - retreat.

The action on both of Daniel's pistols locked back as he emptied the magazines. He turned, caught Jack's eye…and a last wobbling spear throw cut across his arm.

The archaeologist's eyes widened in shock. "Come along, Daniel," O'Neill said. He heard the "Kawoosh" from the gate. "Our ride's here."

Daniel staggered. "Odd," he said. "No tree frogs…" And his eyes rolled up. The Colonel caught him up even as he fell, getting a shoulder under, and quickly staggered after the others back through the gate.

* * *

"And a good thing you only got a little of that stuff into you," O'Neill continued as they sat around the large wooden briefing table. "Doctor Frasier was able to patch you right up." He nodded to the SGC's Chief Medical Officer. "Lucky that guy Woomera jumped the gun on his buddies."

The archaeologist opened his mouth. Closed it. Blinked. "Ritual warfare. Xenophobia isn't sustainable at tribal size. Exogamy is necessary, and that often manifests as trophy-taking. So you get an honor culture, with each man out for himself."

"I get it," O'Neill said. "No officers. Just a bunch of guys. No reason for them to stick to any battle where most of them would get killed off."

Teal'c was troubled. "That ambush would have been very effective against Jaffa," he grudgingly admitted. "Jaffa would have pursued. They would also have fought as individuals, each out to prove himself a better warrior than the others."

"I wish…" the archaeologist pushed his glasses back. "I wish we hadn't had to do that."

"Their choice," O'Neill said. "They jumped us, we shot back until they withdrew."

"You got lucky," Doctor Frasier said then. "Those spear points carried a neurotoxin of the alkaloid group, similar to curare but otherwise unfamiliar to me. We're still studying it. Doctor Jackson was only exposed to traces of it, otherwise I would be reluctant to release him even long enough for this debriefing."

She looked around at the exploration team. "Any one of you could have been exposed to enough to have killed you within minutes. Even you, Teal'c; I am not so sure your symbiote would have been able to tackle this stuff."

"Thank you, Doctor," Hammond spoke then. "Anything further for us now?"

"No," Janet smiled thinly. "Just try to be careful out there, okay?"

"She has a point, you know," Daniel said after the Chief Medical Officer had left. "We've been lucky. We've been lucky a lot. Sometimes I wonder how we've managed to get through all the things we've been through without getting killed."

"Well, there's an argument that we haven't," Samantha Carter mused.

"What!"

"Oh!" She sat up straighter. "I wasn't hinting anything. Just physicist humor. Have you ever heard of Quantum Immortality?"

"Um, no." O'Neill was dead-pan. Daniel just looked confused.

"Well, it's trivial, but entertaining. If you accept the Many-Worlds hypothesis, then there is a near-infinite number of alternate dimensions, many of which have only the subtlest differences from our own. So, any time you did something that had a chance of you getting killed, there's some universe in which you _did_ get killed."

"Un, huh."

"So that means you are, purely by chance, the one that is in the universe where you didn't get killed. If you have a consciousness, it is by definition restricted to only those universes where you didn't get killed. It's really a sort of personal version of Brandon Carter's formulation of the Strong Anthropic Principle…"

O'Neill looked aside at Daniel Jackson. "I find it is best just to nod at this point," he said. Daniel's eyes were looking unusually glassy. "Um…I think we'd better take you back to Doctor Frasier now."

"All right," General Hammond said, putting the papers back in his folder. "Dismissed." He stood. "I'm glad you all made it back safely. I'm sorry this mission wasn't more productive."

"I wouldn't exactly say that," O'Neill also stood. "I finally got a chance to fight in the shade."

Hammond chuckled at that. After O'Neil had left, half propping-up the now sagging archaeologist, Samantha Carter had to ask. "Sir? Shade?"

"Herodotus, writing about Thermopylae," the General said. "He attributes the quip to a soldier named Dienekes. After another man complained the Persian arrows were so numerous they blotted out the sun, Dienekes replied that it would be nice to have some shade to fight in."

"I see," Teal'c was approving. "I would seek out this Herodotus and hear more of such stories from him."

"We'll have you quoting the classics in no time, son," Hammond said heartily. "'Sing, oh Goddess, of the anger of Achilles…'"

* * *

Cairo: 30°3′N 31°14′E

* * *

"Thé à la menthe," Lara smiled. "S'il vous plait." The "lingua franca" here was actually Egyptian Arabic, but French got used in a few places, in particular those with fine white table linen. Plus Muhammad, her waiter, enjoyed having a chance to practice.

She was relaxing on the terrace of Le Riad, a luxury hotel in a charming Fatimad-style building in the mostly Islamic "Old Cairo" quarter of the city, facing the imposing Ottoman houses of Beit El Sehemy. Her dress for the evening was loose top and pants in a silky white charmeuse, with her hair in a wrap.

She had one of the suites here. It took only a moment to reject the garish purple of the "Ottoman" suite and she had had enough of Pharaohs. So that left "Bedouin." Which was elegant and comfortable and dressed with expensive artwork as well as state-of-the-art toiletries, and reminded her almost not at all of her travel companions on her fruitless attempt to uncover the "Phantom City" deep in the uncharted wastes of the Rub' al Khali.

There was a difference between being alone, and being left alone. Lara was comfortable with the solitude of the harsh, remote places she explored. But she also preferred being up here, with the street noise and incessant car horns drifting up (Cairo rarely slept) and the murmur of conversation around her, to trying to think while alone in her — admittedly palatial - rooms.

She sipped her tea and reviewed the notes in her journal. What did she actually know? She knew that a chamber dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god of war and protection, had been hidden beneath a neolithic structure out in the Libyan Desert near Tripoli. It appeared to have once hosted three falcon-themed jars or containers. One seemed to have travelled around the Mediterranean, used alternately by major figures on either side of the Battle of Lepanto, and vanished at last into some hidden treasure-house of the Knights of Malta: or perhaps on to the now-vanished Cabinet of Curiosities of Rudolph II. Eventually, it found its way into the hands of eccentric Egyptologist Catherine Langford, and was stolen from an auction house in London with Libyan aid.

The apparent interest of Libyan strongman Colonel Gadaffi, and the presence of his personal troop of hand-sworn bodyguards, the all-female Amazonian Guard, at Senam Bu-Samida indicated the Colonel knew very well of the Horus jars. The inference is that he himself held the other surviving one. Now, this wasn't the first time she had discovered some artifact of power surfacing in the modern world, nor the first time it had been in the hands of someone unscrupulous. She put a stop to that when she could, but her sights were usually higher.

In following back the connection to Catherine Langford, she had become aware of a massive disk of dark metal that had been unearthed from what appeared to have been intentional burial by First Dynasty Egyptians. The disk had been spirited out of Egypt before the start of the Second World War, and from the evidence of her own encounter in Arlington, was still being protected by some equally mysterious agency of the American government.

What, however, was the connection to Horus? And to the recently-opened tomb in the Valley of Kings, with the serpent-shaped (and very much out-of-place) artifact she had recovered there, not to mention the mysterious death of a young archaeologist, and the disappearance of another?

In her rooms, earlier, she had put Alister and Zip to work filling in some of Tawfik's background. The bookworm research assistant and the hooked-in hacker were good foils for each other, and between them accomplished much more than they could working separately.

"Tawfik Yasser and Carlos Mendez were adaptable helpers for that group that did that ground penetrating radar thing on the tombs. You should see the images, Lara. Cool stuff. Hey, Alister, what's an 'Adaptable helper?'"

"It means a shovelbum, Zip," the research assistant replied in his cultured Public School accent.

"Alister." Lara's voice was flat.

"Right, sorry. I meant, field research assistants." It was generally unsaid within the field, but it was understood that "shovelbum" could only be used (in self-deprecating fashion) by those who had paid their dues behind the shovel. Alister was of the other thread of archaeology both classic and modern; his domain was books and papers and he avoided fieldwork at all cost.

"Tawfik was found dead on the surface, but Carlos vanished the same night," Alister informed his employer. "He showed up months later in Quintana Roo, now calling himself Juan Carlos Halcon, in the middle of a shady deal concerning a newly unearthed crystal skull. Lara, he's a nighthawk, a _huecheros._ One of the black archaeologists."

That is, one of the antiquities traffickers Zahi Hawass hated so much. What had he discovered that made him stray so quickly from the academic path? Something akin to the serpent-shaped artifact she had found across that deadly pit?

Lara couldn't help feeling there was a connection, something behind all of this, something that tied together the Horus jars and the "Gate of Stars" and her discoveries in KV63. Something that explained the link between an Egyptian god and a minor figure from Norse mythology, and explained why a daring scribe would risk everything to warn the literate reader against perfidy by his own god.

This wasn't something that had ended with the Battle of Lepanto. This was something that was still out there, waiting to unleash who knew what terror on the modern world. Of this, she was oddly certain.

But then, experience was a bit of a guide.

Experience had also been her friend earlier this day. She had arranged to bring the serpent artifact to the reclusive Yuen Sen, an expert in an eclectic assortment of ancient cultures linked only by the way they all seemed to deliver up tantalizing glimpses into a much stranger world than what was normally reported in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

She had barely hit the street outside her hotel before the first cab came drifting near, with the blithe mutual recklessness of pedestrian and automobile that marked the big cities in this part of the world. It was an aging black-and-white Peugeot 530, of course, one of the unmetered cabs that in other cities might be called a gypsy cab.

The cab honked at her. Lara smiled. "Mokattam!" she said into the open window.

"Mokattam City, 20 LE!" the cabbie shouted back.

Lara shook her head. "Mokattam Village," she said.

That was a camel of a different color. "60 LE!" the cabbie said immediately.

"_Maleesh,_" Lara replied, and turned away. The day was nice, if typically hot, dusty, and wreathed with the Cairo smog that startled so many tourists. She'd walk until she found a metered cab. Not that she minded the price, but she wasn't prepared to continue haggling through the length of the trip. At least on the metered cabs, your worst problem was the driver finding the longest possible route to your actual destination.

A woman traveling alone expected to get a certain amount of attention. In Cairo, that attention was loud, but often inventive. Among the cries of "_Sukar!_" and "_Mozza!_" were boasts like "I have two hundred camels! Marry me!" And then there was the too-honest young man who cried out, "I have only two camels!"

And it seemed to be a thing to address Europeans with what were clearly intended to be flattering references to famous personalities. "Sophia!" cried one man. "Sophia Loren, look this way!"

"Angelina, I love you!" said another. Angelina? Did he mean the American actress that had so recently appeared as Queen Olympias in a major film about Alexander the Great? Lara had to wonder. The movie had not done well, particularly among historians.

Of course it was impossible to say how much the come-ons were after her body, and how much they were after the Almighty Dollar (or in her case, the Almighty British Pound.) This was always a problem around the tourist areas, with mobs of guides pushing to "volunteer" their services. Zahi Hawass had finally kicked them off the Giza Plateau for frightening the tourists — a move that had not made him popular in some quarters.

At last she found one of the newer white cabs, and flagged it down. "Manshiyat Naser," she said into the window. The driver might as well know exactly what he was getting into. He shrugged eloquently and started the meter. She stepped gracefully into the back seat.

Manshiyat Naser ward was a sprawling slum to the East of central Cairo, over five square kilometers of broken-down buildings and narrow twisting streets. Running water and working electricity were rarities, unemployment was rampant. The dismal picture impressed even Lara, who had been in the favela of Rio, and the emerald mines of Muzo, Colombia.

She was heading further than the cab was willing to go; into "Garbage City," the quarter at the far southern end of Manshiyat Naser where it pushed up against Mokattam Hill. As close as it was to the luxury residences, the geography — the sheer cut-off cliff of the plateau — cut it off from the rest of the city to make it a lonely cul-de-sac.

It was as she alighted from the cab that experience first alerted her to the tail. Two men, at least. Lara smiled grimly. They must have had fun trying to follow her through Cairo's traffic.

In general Cairo was one of the safer major cities of the world when it came to violent crime. If the underworld here had a speciality, it was trafficking. The stolen antiquities market was massive. But Cairo's underworld also traded in less savory goods. Cocaine, heroin and Ecstasy of course. Human trafficking (including the particularly abhorrent "Summer Marriages") and even organ trafficking.

But that didn't mean robbery didn't happen. Most was snatch-and-grab, by small disorganized groups of young men. The two behind her, Lara reflected, looked the type but the fact that they had tailed her instead of going for an easier target of opportunity suggested darker motives.

So she let them close in. Even in a city where families displaced by poverty — or one of the frequent earthquakes — had found themselves moving into their own mausoleum, there were vacant buildings. Lara chose one at random to duck into.

And suddenly they were inside with her. "Take your picture, _sukar,_" said one of the men.

"You have a light?" asked the other. Experienced muggers didn't jump out ahead of you and flash a knife. They played nice until they were within striking distance. And knives they had, too. Pity predators would always insist on attacking prey larger than themselves.

Lara had just come up on the balls of her feet when she spotted the third man. This was not good. She could take these two down, but not before he had a chance to shoot. Take a weapon off one, but knives were lousy for ranged work. It also made it far too clear that they didn't intend robbery; they had come prepared to kill.

So be it.

Lara swung her purse. It was a heavy purse, and she was a lot stronger (and faster) than anyone had a right to expect. That knocked the polo shirt back, and meant she could concentrate on the vivid purple tee. She ducked under his knife arm (what kind of idiot used the overhand grip, in this day and age?) and wrenched his arm around behind him, turning him as a human shield towards the gat man.

Sound behind her. Ralph Laurent was already getting up. She shoved purple towards the pistolero and dropped flat. The knife slash over her head didn't whistle, but it should have. Now pistol was shooting, and she started rolling. This was not going well.

Her purse. The seam had opened in the impact and the artifact she'd brought to show Yuen Sen was lying on the floor beside it. Lara continued her roll, two bullets adding no real damage to the already terrible state of the floor as Mr. 45 proved he hadn't digested the lesson on leading his targets yet.

Alligator took a step back in surprise as she came up on to one knee with a strange weapon-like object in her hand. That gave her plenty of time to hit the first contact that unfolded the snake, then the second one that she had been carefully avoiding ever since she'd noticed it.

The artifact from KV63 made an electronic spitting sound and blue-white lighting lit up the room. It wreathed around the man with the gun. He jerked once, then fell over. Now she knew what the thing did. She wasted no time swinging in short arcs to cover the other two, and triggering it twice more.

"You can smoke now if you like," she told the one who had asked for a light. He did seem to be smoking, at least around the edges. However, he was still alive. All three were. Apparently she'd discovered an ancient Egyptian stun-gun.

"I really should have left one of them conscious," she said aloud. "But then, they probably didn't know anything anyhow."

They certainly didn't know much about committing murder. It rankled, knowing someone had priced her this cheaply. Of course, they were hardly likely to repeat the mistake.

* * *

No-one else harassed her as she completed her trip into Garbage City. By contrast this part of the ward was downright industrious, and despite the piled garbage everywhere (to be fair, garbage was often piled about the streets of Cairo proper as well) it seemed cleaner than the rest of Manshiyat Naser.

They weren't exactly popular with the greater ward, either. Garbage City was the recyclers and de-facto garbage disposal for most of Cairo. Unlike the Muslim majority, the Zabbaleen were over ninety percent Coptic Christian, which permitted them to keep the pigs that formed (along with ducks, and many, many industrious fingers) the machinery of the most efficient recycling operation in the world. Neither pigs nor Christians made them popular neighbors, but both paled against the simple fact that the recycling trucks (once donkey carts, but Nasser had put his foot down at that quaint medievalism in the modern city he was attempting to create) had but one major route to get from their collection rounds to here; right through the middle of Manshiyat Naser.

Yuen Sen was an ageless, all but unlined, entirely bald man with an engaging grin. The busy workers around him all seemed to be women, young women, although there was a number of children as well.

"But where else would I want to be?" he grinned. "Everything in the city comes through here eventually. Any archaeologist knows, you can learn more of a culture from their midden than you can from their treasury."

"I suspect you'll have to wait a while to see anything of Tutankhamen's in Cairo's municipal waste," Lara said dryly.

"I take the long view," Yuen retorted with good humor. "The Pharaohs are come and gone, but in time, Mubarak will also end up in the dust-bin of history. And we will collect the detritus of his rule. This place," he waved his hand towards the rest of the quarter, "is an economic miracle, an ecologic miracle. In the west they recycle twenty, thirty percent. Here we achieve ninety! Ninety percent recycling!"

"Via intensive labor in unsanitary conditions," Lara couldn't help pointing out. "I'm sorry, I'm being a poor guest."

"And I a poor host." Yuen invited her in at that point. There was of course no air conditioning, and the smell and smoke of burning garbage was almost indescribable. He served her hot black tea on china ware that, from the pride in which he presented it, must have been among the treasures rescued from the scrap heaps. "So now," he said when they were comfortable, "Let us see this thing."

Lara produced the serpent-shaped artifact. "Be careful," she warned. "It appears to be some sort of energy weapon."

"You discovered this much?"

"A couple of nice gentlemen volunteered to help me test it," she explained.

"Well, well," the eccentric expert declared. He held it up, hefted it for weight, inspected how light fell along the decorative grooves. "These grooves," he said. "This decoration. It looks Old Kingdom, but it isn't. The closest analog to these curves would be papyrus leaves, but this isn't such a depiction, not even an abstracted one. It is just pattern. Most unusual."

"I noticed that. And the shape?"

"Yes, the Uraeus."

"A depiction of the Goddess Wadjet. The cobra shape, the symbol of divine authority that appears on a Pharaoh's crown or mask." He pondered. "I remember a line in the Book of the Dead, which describes the uraeus as the spitting fire on the enemies of the Pharaoh from the eye of the goddess."

"But there is no Ra connection in this artifact. No sun disc, at least."

"Very mysterious. I am tempted to say; this is not a product of early Egyptian religious beliefs. This is instead the creation of someone else in response to some of those beliefs."

"A fake, you mean?"

"No, not quite in the sense you mean. This may or may not be Egyptian. One thing I can tell you, however; it is very, very old."

"I could have told you that. I found it in a chamber that hadn't seen daylight in three thousand years. Wait — how can you tell how old it is?" Yuen Sen was regarded as having nearly supernatural powers when it came to understanding unique artifacts, but this was a bit beyond belief.

"Because I have seen something like it before. A mention, a brief mention. In a papyrus fragment that others have declared a fake or an ancient flight of fantasy."

"Well." Lara stood. "I'd very much like to see your materials on that papyrus, then. Send it to me when you've unearthed it. Ah…do you even have internet here?"

"I will have the boy start pedaling." Yuen Sen winked. "It is amazing what you can cobble up with an old bicycle and a few small motors and gears. Unfortunately, he must pedal for four hours for each twenty minutes he plays those computer games of his, and he does enjoy those games…"

* * *

Lara was still smiling at her memory of the meeting with the inimitable Yuen Sen when a stranger stepped up to her table.

"You know," she said, "Muhammad got fifty pounds from me to make sure no lonely men just happened to find the one empty chair on this terrace."

"I bribed him a hundred," the man said in good humor. He was dressed to the nines in an off-white linen suit of old-fashioned cut, small wire-frame glasses and even a straw boater, which he had of course removed. Lara gave him an approving look-over, although she carefully hid all expression from her face. It couldn't hurt a girl to window-shop, even if she had no intention of buying.

"He'll make a tidy profit," she observed. The waiter was honest to a fault, enough that she was sure he'd attempt to return her own bribe to her after this. "You paid for a table; now sit and at least pretend to enjoy it. Have some mint tea."

"I will," the man said. He sat with good grace. "But I won't be long. An acquaintance of mine — it would be too much to call him a friend — wishes to invite you to meet tomorrow, during the day. He has written a time and place on this card."

He presented it. Lara immediately flipped the card over. She wasn't entirely surprised by what she found, printed in a simple, severe black.

The falcon.


	6. Chapter 6

Those who know the mythology of SG1 have probably figured out Carlos' secret by now. Please don't tell the others, not yet.

The first game I played through was Tomb Raider: Underworld. That's my Lara (plus a fair bit of the movie.) Hard-edged, elegant, a thrill-seeker, a professional. And this chapter, I'm going to see if I can't find a little of her softer side. Or at least sow some self-doubt.

As usual, I imply no rights to any properties commercial or otherwise, and intend no criticisms in the fictionalized presentations of any real cultures, people, or places.

* * *

Cairo: 30°3′N 31°14′E

* * *

"I'm digging in the dirt, to find the places I got hurt…"

It dawned on Lara just how clever the chosen meeting place was when her cab reached the private bridge of Grand Hyatt Cairo. The sweeping curve of the hotel, and the shining tower beside it — barely a year old — sat proudly at the northern tip of Al-Roda island, which nestled along the shore of the Nile as it passed through Cairo. Armed guards from the hotel stopped every car, and guests were further greeted by a walk-through metal detector. It formed part of what was like a gated community diffused across Cairo; the various mechanisms the held the monied and the foreign visitors apart from the unwashed horde.

It also made a very effective neutral ground. The Falcon had no doubt set those thugs on her, and he had to be aware that she'd figured that out. So it was smart thinking to meet in a place where a third party held the upper hand. And all the guns.

On the ground floor of the Hyatt was one of that high-profile chain of music-themed clubs and diners; the Hard Rock Cafe Cairo. Rock music played loudly over the sound system; at the moment it was canned, and appeared to be Peter Gabriel. Above the main dining area hung a 1957 Cadillac once belonging to President Nasser — presumably not the armored one he'd had made by Hess & Eisenhardt. Also among their collection, apparently, was a jacket from ZZ Top and a body suit with strategic tassels once worn by the pop singer Madonna.

The cover was a hundred pounds — Egyptian, that is, which worked out to around ten pounds sterling. It had probably been a mistake to tie their currency so tightly to the American dollar. But then, Lara felt unfamiliar stirrings of nationalism at her own people's refusal to go over to the Euro. That cover didn't include bar, of course, and the rates were considerably higher during _iftar._

The man who wished to see her was dressed in the same conservative western-style clothes of half the developed world; slacks and a button-down white shirt. His sole concession to style was a closely-tailored leather jacket.

Lara herself was wearing what she thought of privately as "shovelbum chic"; a peasant blouse with a little neck embroidery over twill slacks with walking boots and a sun hat. But they were still overdressed by the usual standards of the Hard Rock Cafe; as the clientele were mostly younger tourists and expats, shorts and t-shirts were the uniform of the day.

"Lara Croft." The man stood to greet her. Lara saw his nostrils flare in surprise a long moment before he decided to let the expression pass to his face. "Well, well, well," he said.

"I look taller in pictures?" Lara said.

"Heh." The man shook his head. "Oh, really. This is just perfect. The Tears of Horus, eh?"

"The trilithon at Senam Bu-Samida," Lara replied, probing back.

His expression changed. She had the sense she'd missed the expected reply. "Well," he shrugged. "I guess that makes another mystery about you, Lady Lara Croft."

Lara was a little annoyed at the dismissal. "A match for the mystery about you, Juan Carlos Halcon? Or should I be calling you 'El Halcon'?" She hadn't meant to reveal that so early, but she couldn't help it.

"'Carlos' will do just fine, my lady. Let us be friends." He saw her to her seat, and sat himself. "You and I are much alike; archaeology is our religion."

"Does _everyone_ in Cairo have to quote that movie?" Lara rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I'm that transparent, am I?"

"Carlos, you are a looter. I've heard of 'The Falcon,' all right. You've made quite a reputation over just a few years. Derring-do and narrow escapes, ransacked shrines, running gun battles, temples set on fire."

"You leave a similar record behind yourself, Lara Croft."

"I do it for the archaeology, Carlos! Not for the fame and fortune. What I find, goes into museums. I work to help humanity learn more about its past. I don't work to give rich men something to show off in their private collections."

"Oh, really? Can you look yourself in the mirror and claim you don't enjoy the thrill of the chase?" Carlos smiled broadly, but without rancor. Then he turned more serious. "You are a killer, Lara. We recognize that in each other."

"Only when there is no choice." But Lara couldn't meet his eyes.

This provided a perfect juncture for the waitress to come by. Fortunately for all concerned, the canned music had not moved to anything the staff might feel obligated to sing along to. The menu selection was wide, but their speciality was American-style fast food; Lara opted for a burger. With her metabolism and lifestyle, fatty foods were hardly a problem.

The best part — some would call it the saving grace — of the place was the view of the Nile. Fellucas sailed like agile swans below their tall triangular sails, steering about the sleek powerboats and the barges with washing strung on lines. The fountain in the middle of the Nile sprayed water into the air, not of course illuminated this early in the afternoon, and Cairo stretched out across the far shore, vanishing into the ever-present smog.

Civilizations had rose and fell along the fertile banks of this great river. 20,000 years ago people were trading down the length of it, marking the value of their goods on wooden tally sticks. Egypt was birthed in the cycle of flooding that brought life-giving water to the plains. The Romans fought for, and eventually retreated from, the upper Nile, followed by other empires — French and British among them. Chinese Gordon fought the Mahdi upstream from here, where the Blue Nile met the White Nile, and Kirshner came back through a few years later. Monty had pushed Rommel back just West of here, at El Alamein, giving Churchill the excuse to announce the war had at last reached "…the end of the beginning."

It was a heady history. Lara felt, at that moment, a rather odd longing for traditional fieldwork. For sitting in the dirt over long hot days, sharing both the drudgery and those tiny treasured moments of discovery with your team mates. Of course the field was changing rapidly, had been even when she was a student. GPS and software logging programs that had all but made traditional grids a thing of the past. And the new computer power meant that statistical and contextual analysis, synthesis and reconstruction and simulation, took a larger and larger role. But archaeology still moved today as it had for hundreds of years; on underpaid students sifting through piles of dirt.

She sighed, tried to bring herself back to the present. The music had moved on to a new selection, a rather lugubrious bit of prog rock. "No one knows who they were or what they were doing. But their legacy remains hewn into the living rock...Of Stonehenge. Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell…"

Tacked to the wall above Lara's head, amid the other music memorabilia, was a red electric guitar donated by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A Squier Standard Strat, she noticed with amusement. She couldn't fault their economy.

"How is your food?" Carlos asked, being conciliatory.

"Authentic," Lara replied tersely. It sounded kinder than it was. And she damned Carlos for being able to get under her skin so easily. And for slipping so quickly into the role of someone she could have this sort of conversation with. He'd sent killers after her. He'd been involved in the bombing at Sotheby's. He was exactly the wrong kind of person to ever let one's guard down around!

"All right, Carlos," she said at last. "Why don't you tell me something I don't know?"

"Why should I?" he asked pleasantly.

"I'll tell you something you don't know."

"Try me. I'll let you know what it is worth."

Damn him, he was controlling the conversation again. Lara managed her temper with difficulty. "KV63," she said. "I found something there, a small black object, like a cobra folded into a zed."

"A _zat'nik'tel._" The name rolled off the man's tongue. "A useful toy. That wasn't my exchange, by the way. That was a freebie. So what else did you find in the second chamber?"

"A broken canopic jar. Nothing else obvious. I didn't have a lot of time to search."

"Ah. And who has these artifacts now?"

"I kept the snake. Everything else will have to remain until Dr. Schaden's team gets in there. I wouldn't expect them to move before next season at the earliest."

"Well." Carlos sat back, satisfied. "That was useful to me. So I will trade you with another name. Crystal Palace."

"Crystal…I assume you don't mean in Hyde Park."

"Don't think London, Lara. Think…Colorado."

* * *

Lara's bags were packed. It was time to clear Cairo. But she was a little reluctant to follow the lead Carlos had presented to her. What was in it for him?

The Tears of Horus. There was something about the falcon jars she was missing. Right, then.

"Alister, Zip, I'm widening the search," she said into her secure VOIP connection. "I'm linking you to the Sotheby's auction site. I want you, Zip, to do an image search. Gather any matches you can find to this artifact; current, old depictions in books, anything. Alister, I want you looking again for any reference to the Tears of Horus."

Lara closed her case with a snap, picked up the laptop bag. "There's something rather chilly about this artifact, gentlemen. I have good reason to believe the Tears are some sort of trap. A gift that harms the recipient."

"A Trojan Horse, eh?"

"Perhaps. Aside from not being Greek, or horse-shaped, or large enough to fit armed men inside. Aside from being not at all similar, that is."

"I…I'll get right on it."

"Me too, Lara. If it is on the web, it will be in my hands."

There was an unexpected interruption. A polite and very old-fashioned cough. "Pardon, my lady. That item Zip is looking at now; that is the Greek gift you are speaking of?"

"Winston? Yes, certainly. Why…have you seen something like it in father's collections?"

The aged servant moved into the camera pick-up. Lara was startled and dismayed by the expression on his face. Guilt. Guilt, fear, and overlying all of that, a terrible sorrow. "My lady," he said. He had to stop for a moment, recover himself. "I think it is best you return home. At once."

* * *

"General, we have a problem."

"Major, problems are what the Air Force pays me to have."

"Sir, the T Tauri anomaly. It's made it all the way to _Sky and Telescope._"

"Tauri? That's what the Goa'uld call us, isn't it. Major, why don't you come in, sit down, and start from the top."

Major Samantha Carter came in, sat down, and started from the top. "T Tauri is a class of variable stars, sir," she said. "Variable stars are incredibly important to astronomy. The mass/period relationship of the Cepheid variables allowed astronomers to construct the first cosmic distance ladder, and realize we were living in one galaxy among many. I'm sorry if this is too basic for you, sir."

"Go on," General Hammond said good-naturedly.

"Astronomers have been calling it the T Tauri anomaly after Sarah Chen at Keck first spotted the problem, but it is with other variable stars, particularly the SX Phoenicis variables, that it has become obvious to a growing group. Now that it has hit the popular science press, I'm not sure anyone can stop it."

"Major, the problem?"

"Sorry, sir. The better-behaved variables are driven by an internal resonance. They change in brightness in an extremely regular way. That's what made the Cepheids so useful as a standard candle. Sir, the nearest SX Phoenicis is well outside our solar system. We are jumping in time. That causes a visible break in the light curves coming from the star. It was only a matter of time before astronomers compared notes and realized they were seeing the same breaks in multiple cases."

"I see. I'd better make a few calls, then. How long do you think before this becomes public knowledge?"

"It already is," Carter had on her earnest face — the expression she got when she was following the science too closely to step back and look at the consequences. As the General watched, she caught herself at it, and shook her head in chagrin. "Right now, it is passing from being known as an academic curiosity among astronomers, to being a cool new thing known among geeks. The trouble with something like this, is, it doesn't take any sophisticated equipment to map the light curve of a variable star. Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered the mass/period relationship in 1893, working from photographic plates."

"So it could spill over into the regular news outlets at any moment. Or remain a curiosity for a while longer," Hammond said. "Thank you, Major. If there is nothing else, I'd better get started on those calls. Before I have to start answering them instead."

* * *

Surrey: 51.15°N 0.25°W

* * *

His parents had never read Orwell: they considered him a dangerous radical. Winston Smith was in college before he discovered the character who shared his name, and he was rather bemused by the discovery. His parents were of the generation that returned to personal service as the highest possible calling. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, they took pains to pick up the aitch their forefathers had once dropped. Tugging the forelock was optional but recommended.

Winston had however grown with the times. He fully supported and had a healthy interest in his employer's profession. He wasn't a bad amateur archaeologist himself — as well as being a dab hand with the shotgun (a talent he'd proven on more than clay pigeons). Throughout all of this, however, he was still the consummate manservant, the Bunter to Lara's Lord Whimsey, a valet that Bertie would trade Jeeves for, a most admirable Crichton (though quite without the latter's ambitions).

Lara was also just as happy he preferred not to travel. It was a perfectly equitable arrangement for the both of them; he kept the household in order, kept the boys out of trouble, and otherwise managed her affairs while she was off adventuring across the world. And on her rare sojourns home, he doted on her and she let him.

But she'd never seen him like this. His hand shook as he brought out the Scharzhofberger Trockenbeerenauslese and the two glasses.

Every year she would come home as close to the winter solstice as was practical. And on that first night home she would drink the toast. Once, she shared it with her father. Now there was but a symbolic drop in his glass as she drunk alone. It was a family tradition. They'd started the year after mother's death. Even then, her father was increasingly distant. Not in emotion; he held her close with a sort of desperation on those rare times they had together. But he was so driven in his search, he could barely spare more than their yearly toast. That made it even more precious to her.

She had continued the toast after he vanished in Cambodia. She realized now she wasn't entirely sure why she had done so. Winston had merely shown up with the Scharzhofberger on that first anniversary, and she had let him guide. He must have seen she needed this symbolic link to her parents, this annual wake. And she did need it. She needed that time to unwind and reflect. It was the only time of the year when she could really stop and think about what sort of woman she was now. And whether her father would have approved of how his daughter had turned out.

"My lady." Winston's voice was steady. There had obviously been more than one sleepless night for him since he had asked her to return, and he had used the time to arrive at a place where he could tell her, almost dispassionately, of the crime he had colluded on with her father. "There is a step in the toast you never observed. It was a secret Richard kept. He meant it as a gift to you, when he realized you had begun the first steps along the same path as he."

He stopped. For a moment he seemed to break through the guilt he was carrying, and he almost smiled. "Your father could not have been more pleased that you followed in his footsteps," he said. "For all that he tried to protect you when you were younger, he respected the commitment he saw in you. If he were still here today he would be very, very proud. And that is why he wished you to have every advantage he had."

There was a hidden panel above the fireplace. Of course there was. Some ancestor of hers had been entirely too fond of secret passages and hidden panels. Where some family might have been satisfied with a priest's hole for emergencies, hers had added more hinges and traps than the Winchester Mystery House. She'd spent more than one rainy day searching the estate for such. Her father took a childish delight in the things himself, and added several of his own. It was bad enough one of them could mutter, "Put the candle back!" and reduce the other to tears of laughter.

Lara should not have been surprised by what Winston brought out of hiding. A small black container with a falcon motif. The broken upper half of the third Horus jar.

"According to the legends, the Horus Draught gave increased strength, endurance, and resistance to disease. Whether this was true or not, his yearly draught had not harmed him. He placed me into his confidence, and we…" his voice broke at this point, "…we began to give it to you."

"Winston, please," Lara went to him. "It did not harm him, and it has not harmed me. I'm not…I can't say I'm happy that father would do this without telling me…but I accept that both of you meant well."

She wanted to say more. She wanted to give him the forgiveness he needed. But this…this changed everything. She needed space to think. She couldn't trust herself to speak, and was forced to merely nod towards the door. Winston, as ever the perceptive servant, withdrew. And she hated herself a little more. This was far, far worse than that one time when she was a child and had locked him into the walk-in freezer. She had never forgiven herself that, and she might never forgive herself this moment, either.

The library was one of her favorite rooms; smaller and more intimate than most in the Abbingdon estate, with a muted parquet floor and walls entirely the color of the old books which filled every square inch that wasn't door, the Sienna marble fireplace, or the tall windows that let in natural light.

But at the moment, she found it stifling. The red Nigerian goatskin of the original 1782 chairs was usually comfortable, but not at this moment. She jumped back to her feet, strode across the room, flung open the French windows and leaned against the Parisian cast-iron rails of the small balcony.

The fresh air helped. The greenery of the West Garden helped more. Lady Gwendolen had done good work, when the big restoration of the grounds of Abbingdon had happened in Victorian times.

Lara knew her own modifications to the venerable building were sometimes looked at askance, especially by preservationists. Upon reflection, the floor-to-ceiling glass panels that walled off Zip's "batcave" of computers and electronics from the rest of the parlor was a mistake. She'd been misled by the way the similarly odd juxtaposition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid had somehow not clashed in its setting of the _Cour Napoléon_ of the Louvre Palace.

Pyramids again. And she was avoiding thinking about the Tears of Horus.

She had been cheating. Through all of those daring escapades, through all those narrow escapes, something had been pulling for her. When she matched strength and skill against a fencer in a friendly match or a gunman in a deadly duel, she was being helped by a chemical boost. She was a steroid abuser, a doper. It didn't matter that she hadn't known. She had done it, she had taken the unfair advantage, and that meant all her accomplishments were less than they seemed.

She'd taken so much _pride_ in being faster, stronger, than anyone else around. Of doing gymnastics tricks others could not dare to. Of being the one that was still clear-headed and able to lend a hand with a heavy pack when the mountaineering expedition was well above the death zone.

She'd thought this was the product of her harsh training regime and the way she continually pushed herself to do more. She thought that these were all earned skills. Now she had to confront the idea that this might have been given to her.

She needed action. She needed movement. She spun on her heel and headed down towards the large and customized gym, practically shedding her travel clothes as she walked.

Out of all the facilities offered in the connected set of rooms, the aerial equipment was her favorite. But she couldn't trust her head at this moment. Better to work a little closer to the mats. Among the various upkeeps Winston managed was to bring a professional route-setter in for the climbing wall installed along the Eastern end of the largest of the rooms; the one with the atrium and skylight, with the trapeze and slack line high overhead.

Even Zip had tried his hand at it once (Alister refused to stir from his reading chair) and was surprisingly agile. Perhaps one day she'd get him out to the range as well and show him the right way to hold a pistol.

Lara picked a route at random. It started with an undercling, but after a couple of reachy moves offered a dyno off a pair of nubby crimps. Someone had been paying attention to her climbing style. The dyno was all the way to a shelf that seemed to call for a mantle; there were no feet available for this part of the route.

Her concentration wasn't in it. Usually, she could count on physical activity — particularly climbing, riding, or shooting — to put her in a focused zone where the rest of the world fell away. It wasn't happening today, though. She misread the route, tried to lean off a nasty little gaston, found herself on an off-foot and then blew the foot change.

She peeled from four meters up and there wasn't enough time to straighten up. She hit the mat at an awkward angle and rolled hard on her left trying to take up the impact. The world went grey for a moment. She stayed as she had fallen, waiting for the spinning to stop. She didn't seem to have damaged anything, at least.

Technique. She'd misread the route, and tried to bully her way through on strength. She looked back up. What she should have done, is stay on the off foot and flag with her right, and that would have kept the gaston at a positive angle.

She was already back on her feet and back on the route before the metaphorical shoe dropped. Skills. Training. Whether she had chemistry putting some extra muscle behind it, you couldn't solve a 7a bouldering problem without knowing how to drop-knee. And the same applied to fencing or shooting. Mere chemistry didn't teach you the _prise de fer,_ or to squeeze the trigger during the natural pause between breaths.

And no-one was born equal anyhow (with the possible exception of Monozygotic twins). One had the genetic lottery of one's own birth, plus the inheritance of one's line. And her line had always been marked by physical prowess.

Nor had it ever a problem to her to make use of technology in her work. She was entirely happy to bring a pair of match-grade magnums with custom-fitted grips to bring to bear against some poor Moro with but a traditional barong knife to his name. Her high-tech equipment, her wealth itself, was also a gift had been given.

So even if the Tears had given her an extra edge, she had still _done_ that training. She had still chosen to take those risks. Her physical accomplishments rested as much on trained skill as they did on natural talent, and that skill was earned. She didn't have to like it, and she was still extremely wary of whatever the hidden downside of that Greek gift was, but she could accept it and move on.

She topped out and down-climbed in an easier spot, this time landing lightly on the mat. Winston — his timing impeccable as usual — entered with a towel and ice water.

She took the glass with a thankful look and drained it. Then held his eyes with her own. "No more secrets," she said firmly. She needed to say no more than that.

Well, except for one thing. She smiled, suddenly. "I always wondered about the Scharzhofberger. So it wasn't just that father thought an excessively sweet riesling would suit a young girl's pallet. He was counting on that well-known petrol note to hide the taste of the Horus Draught."

Winston smiled properly then, his face relaxing. "As much as I admire the work of the elder Egon, I am afraid the '51 TBA was not one of his best. But your father had two cases of it in the cellars."

* * *

Upon reflection, the glass wall really didn't do anything for the room. Other than keep the rest of the house free from the incessant humming of computer fans and the frequent beeps of routers and whatever else Zip had in there. There was enough plugged in (and Zip had a _laissez-faire_ enough attitude towards proper power distribution) the annex also seemed to always smell of ozone.

It was also possible the partition wall was the only thing keeping Zip's Post-it notes from escaping. They crawled all over the main workstation, and, oddly, clustered in one corner of the room, forming a crude spiral on the floor that ended in a singe discarded tennis shoe.

The other thing Lara couldn't figure out is why Alister ended up there so often, considering he was much more at home with books and manuscripts.

"Alister," she said without preamble, "I've got something that seems down your line. Crystal Palace. What do you know about it?"

"Built for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Architect was the head gardener for Chatsworth House, also designed Birkenhead Park. Was moved a couple times and eventually burned down."

"Not the one in Hyde Park," Lara said. "Think Colorado."

"Colorado?" Zip had been listening with bemusement. "Colora… Awe, hell no!"

"Zip?"

"You guys! Queen Victoria this and Tutankhamen that. You've got to meet the modern age. The Crystal Palace is what some people call The Mountain." The others looked blankly at him. "As in SAC. Oh, please tell me, you are _not_ going to try to sneak into NORAD next!"


	7. Chapter 7

I'm sorry, but I just couldn't face doing 6,000 words of Lara sneaking around in air vents, like playing Black Mesa in reverse. So instead this chapter features more wondrous strange and basically useless trivia from philanthropists of the Gilded Age to off-shore data havens to scientific insanity from the height of the Cold War.

I've been to Colorado. Once. Rode the cog railroad to the top of Pike's Peak. I was young and I remember little of the trip. So everything below is gleaned from research and is, again, probably wrong.

* * *

Cheyenne Mountain, 38°44′32.91″N 104°50′54.40″W

* * *

"One does not simply walk into NORAD," Zip had said. Alister had nodded. For once, one of them had said something the other understood instantly. They might be from very different worlds…but both were also total nerds.

Lara wasn't exactly sneaking. She was hiking. The summit of Cheyenne Mountain fell within the Pike National Forest, but there was no regular trail to it from the recreation area to the South. Many visitors chose to cut through the various private lands that dotted the Northeast part of the massif instead, particularly if they wanted to reach the lower summit of "The Horns" (a striking though not particularly large rock formation).

She had started the day at the Broadmoor Hotel, a sprawling resort built by Spencer Penrose on Arizona gold and silver in 1918. Private aircraft were landing on the nearby fields in the late 20's, shuttling rich patients hoping the cool air of the Colorado Rockies would clear up their tuberculosis. Presidents and their entourages stayed at the hotel, major conferences rented the halls. It was five star, five diamond, and Zagat "Excellent," and many of the same high marks were earned by the hotel's own restaurant, and the professional-level golf course adjoining it.

And if golf, tennis, and swimming weren't enough for you, you could go across the lake to ice skate at a facility good enough to have hosted the World Figure Skating Championship. Or take a hike. The one maintained bit of Penrose's ambitious Cheyenne Mountain Highway started at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo; from there to the Will Rogers Shrine was an easy 600 meters as the hawk flew.

That same trail was a bit over three kilometers of innumerable looping switchbacks for a bird on foot, even if the raptor in question wore a bright turquoise top and salmon-colored nylon running shorts — an eye-catching neon salmon, at that — as protective camouflage.

In her small pack and otherwise about her kit was a GPS, and a 'zine from the growing sport of geocaching. That was her first cover if things went wrong. The geocachers reminded her quite a bit of the urban archeologists she had hung out with in the City by the Bay years ago. The same young, rebellious, colorful types, although with a lot more nerdy love of cutting-edge electronic gadgetry.

Her kit also contained a North American Arms "Black Widow" mini-revolver, and strapped to her left ankle beneath the hiking sock was a 24 cm Gil Hibben with a rubber-wrapped hilt. The back side of the mountain, especially parts of Old Stage Road, was described by locals as "Sketchy as hell" and was apparently the unofficial body dumping ground for the Colorado Springs area. Which, given the multiple antenna farms and probable NORAD sensors around, sounded like a very stupid idea. But then, crooks were rarely particularly clever.

The other thing she wasn't exactly doing was trying to get into NORAD itself. That task had better options than crawling around on top of the mountain. But as sprawling as the underground community was, her target was a little deeper yet — and offered a slightly more direct access.

"Most Americans," Zip had told the others, "think of NORAD maybe once a year, when they're tracking Santa's sleigh for the kiddies. Their real job, though, is watching everything that gets into North America airspace. It's a joint Canadian-American operation, and the headquarters since 1966 is the Cheyenne Mountain Nuclear Bunker; a hardened facility dug three hundred meters under a spur of the Rocky Mountains.

"The bunker was designed to survive a near-miss from a thirty-megaton warhead. It's got buildings on springs, it's got its own generators and a big underground reservoir, and 2,000 people could work down there — and survive for a month or two behind that meter-thick blast door - before they had to crawl out and fight for fresh food and water with the radioactive mutants outside.

"Things have changed since the Cold War petered out, though. They are moving most of the gear to Peterson AFB over the next few years, and are changing the name to 'Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station' or something.

"But that's not the point. There's something else going on under the massif. There's a lot of people coming in and out these days who aren't part of the NORAD command structure, and a lot of scientific and technical types who don't belong either. It's like there is a second facility within the bunker. And the list of specialists working there is wacked."

"'Wacked?'"

"They've got top-flight high-energy physicists, astrophysicists, paleo-botanists, xeno-biologists…"

"…And at least one archaeologist," Lara added.

"…Plus a crop of SEALs and Force-Recon Marines and other tough cases. I think I found that O'Neill of yours. He's so Black Ops if he tried to publish his memoirs, most of the pages would be blank."

"So how did you learn all this?" Alister was skeptical.

"Laundry," Zip said proudly. "The Air Force runs on civilian contractors, and their security isn't as hot as USAF's. I've been looking at food deliveries, uniform maintenance, construction equipment rentals, bus and taxi traffic; everything that moves in and out of the mountain. Computers, man. You can do anything with enough data and the right statistical analysis."

"It's called open-source intelligence," Alister said. "Spies have been doing it since Rahab."

"Yeah maybe, but I can do it a _lot_ faster."

"Well, I did a little looking around on the front door." It was Alister's turn. "NORAD doesn't have public tours, but they do junkets; congressmen and their families and friends. I'm afraid merely sharing a Queen with our friends in the Commonwealth is not going to get you in on your own merits — even if you had allowed yourself to be appointed to the House of Lords. However, among your many acquaintances, I am certain there are a few Americans with the necessary rank and political connections."

"The problem with going in with a tour, Alister, is that they already know you are there, and they know where to start looking if you wander off. I'm afraid I rank it slightly above swimming up the drains as a way to infiltrate a building."

"This from a lady who chose driving a Harley through the front window as the way to sneak into a skyscraper full of yakuza."

"I did no such thing," Lara replied. "It was a Ducati."

"So subterfuge is out. Direct access is tough. What's your plan?"

"I don't have one yet, Zip. But I do have a question. Assume the artefact from Giza is down there under the mountain. How did they get it there?"

* * *

"Am I addressing Sir Munson of the Principality of Sealand?"

"The…uh…who?"

"Munson," Lara said, "You are no fun." Not that Lady Lara Croft, Countess of Abbingdon, cared much for titles. Anymore than Munson cared for the quixotic dreams of the tiny, generally unrecognized, micro-nation of Sealand within which he made his current residence. His interest was in the secret histories, the CIA plots and Ministry cover-ups, what CERN was _really _looking for and the truth of what happened at the Pont de l'Alma underpass in 1999.

All he wanted in life was a cot, a hotplate, and a fast internet connection. Anyone else, Lara thought, would probably find his current home depressing and claustrophobic. Sealand was built on one of the Maunsell Forts from the Second World War. Two hollow towers, connected by a superstructure, were towed out over a sandbar seven nautical miles off the coast of Suffolk, flooded and sunk there to produce a crude gun platform suspended above the waves.

A pirate radio station was the first squatter after the structure was abandoned by the Royal Navy, followed by Major Paddy Roy Bates, who now styled himself "Prince Roy." The prince wished his artificial island with a population of maybe forty souls to become the world's smallest nation. Sealand had printed up their own passports, issued their own stamps, and of course gave themselves seigniorage, issuing the Sealand Dollar.

Unfortunately for their aspirations, the rest of the world had failed to play along. Since 1987, they now fell within the expanded territorial waters of the United Kingdom, and in any case the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea had unambiguously ruled that artificial islands don't count.

Not that even nationhood would have protected them if they had managed to seriously rile the U.K. The Falklands Crisis had aptly demonstrated that. Sealand essentially operated on British indulgence, like a crazy uncle kept around because he harmed no-one. It was, Lara thought, a peculiarly British indulgence — as was the stubborn ornery pride of the Sealanders themselves.

The U.K. was probably their main protector, at that. That, and the fact that no-one else seemed to want the artificial island — the one attempt at military take-over had been massed by one German businessman and some friends, and was foiled by Prince Michael a few days later. Lara wasn't sure how she felt about the realization that she herself could take over the place with no more than her customary pair of pistols, and style herself Queen of her own tiny nation.

In any case, an internet company had moved in a huge rack of servers to make up a profitable data haven, and that was an environment that suited Munson to a T. Or to an I.T., if you wanted to be clever about it.

"Munson," Lara said now. "You curious about what happened in Kazakhstan?"

"Soviets came in, Soviets went out. Eventually they even got their nukes back. It's a big country, Lara. More land area than Western Europe. 65th down on the list of world populations."

"Let me be more precise," Lara smiled. "At an installation not far from Kurchatov, along the Irtysh out of the Altai mountains. No, let me be even more precise. Project Carbonek."

"Semipalatinsk," Munson hadn't waited for her to finish. "The Polygon. Only the biggest test site for Soviet nukes….wait, what? Carbonek? You know about _Carbonek_?"

"I can put you in touch with Colonel Dosken Bahytovich Aslanov. He was there." Her smile widened. "So was I."

"Give, give!" From the sound of it, Munson was practically hopping up and down on his chair.

"No way. I tell you another word and you will be lost for days following up the connections. Me first."

"Right, then." Munson could barely contain his impatience.

"I asked you if you knew of anything large being brought into The Mountain."

"I can't tell you that, yet. But I can tell you something big was going to be. Cooler heads prevailed, but the shaft is still there."

"_Tanquam ex ungue leonem._"

"Eh? Anyhow, there's a shaft. A silo, actually, although it is unclear how much of the supporting hardware ever got installed. Was part of the original fit-up in the early 60's. So you've heard of Pluto?"

"The planet, or the Greek god?"

"No, the cartoon animal. Real funny. Project Pluto. Pluto was an insane little get-together between the Air Force and the AEC. They were trying to build a primitive cruise missile. A nuclear-powered one."

"Nuclear…?"

"Worse. A nuclear _ramjet_. A ramjet powered by an open-core, unshielded reactor. The thing would be completely robotic; no pilot could survive the radiation. You understand the basic principle? You bring a hollow cylinder of uranium fuel elements up to critical mass and shove enough air through it to keep it from melting. The superheated air blasts out the back and you have your rocket engine.

"They intended to fill the bomb bay with nukes, which it could drop on multiple targets along its flight path. Thing could stay aloft for months. But even before it got to releasing the bombs, here's what you have; a robot aircraft the size and weight of a locomotive, red-hot, screaming along just above the ground at over three times the speed of sound, irradiating the ground and spewing radioactive air and uranium particles after it. The shock wave alone would shatter buildings along the flight path, and what the passage would do to an unshielded human being doesn't bear thinking of."

"They put that into the silo in Colorado?" Lara asked.

"No. They never got further than an engine test. By the time they had the Tory-IIc reactor ready, the Air Force was getting cold feet. ICBMs were a lot more practical way to put warheads on target, and a lot faster, too. You would definitely see this thing coming! To paraphrase the general observing the ill-fated attempt to leap tank ditches with a Vickers Valentine by strapping JATO rockets to it, as a weapon of war it left much to be desired, but as a spectacle it would take much beating.

"Anyhow, the Air Force weren't the only ones with cold feet; by 1964 the shine had worn off the Friendly Atom; we had Windscale power excursion and the Bluegill Prime shot of Fishbowl that contaminated Johnston Atoll and of course the Daigo Fukuryū Maru."

"Thus leaving a hole."

"Not quite. Some bad ideas don't die easy. Someone got a hold of Pluto and managed to get a little money thrown into what they were calling Project Nergal. If they had asked me, I would have named it Project Esau, after the original red-headed step child. You know that a Teller-Ulam configuration can be produced to any arbitrary size, right? Just keep adding layers. Tsar Bomba was a fifty-megaton shot, and they NERFd it by using lead for the outer shell.

"It was sort of MAD — Mutual Assured Destruction — taken to the Strangelovian extreme. When a full-scale exchange had already begun, NORAD would launch this thing out of their own sole tube. It would then lumber over the bombed-over Earth as an un-stoppable juggernaut, finally laying a gigaton egg in the heart of whatever was left of Moscow. Well, fortunately, that plan died too. But not before they left a hole."

There was an "…and" there, and Lara picked up on it. "And?" she said for him.

"And I have a map," Munson said.

* * *

Lara had timed it carefully. The sun was just on the horizon as she crossed a low ridge and was able to see The Horns before her. The road (now a rutted dirt remnant) ended here, at what looked surprisingly like an ancient building. Whether it was foundation stones in a field in Surrey, or the remnants of 19th-dynasty workman's huts in the Valley of Kings, there was something common about the look of light against dark, outlining broken rectangles in what across the ages formed similar patterns of habitation.

This was the Honeymoon Lodge. Surrounded by the tall, slender shapes of lodgepole pine, in a clearing that now struggled to stay clear of scrub of juniper and sage, it had sat at 9,400 feet, at the end of a long winding access road, as a jewel of the Gilded Age. The exterior of the building had been in a Pueblo style, of all things, with roof poles sticking through what had seemed like adobe walls, and a tall foundation (and many stairs) in a truncated pyramid of hand-laid stones. No wonder the remaining foundations looked so archaic.

Unfortunately fewer customers had dared the six miles of winding road than Penrose had hoped. The restaurant lingered on until perhaps the 1960's, nearly disused and largely un-functional. The building might even have spent a short time as a brothel. Finally, fearing the costs of asbestos abatement, the ruin had been literally bulldozed off the summit; shoved without ceremony off the sharp drop-off to her East, into a rubble pile that still remained.

Evening clouds were moving in, well below her current elevation. On a properly cloudy day they could fill in to the horizon, making the summits of this and Pike's Peak into ships in a grey ocean. An oddly familiar sound drifted up from the valley; the distinctive four pitches of the Westminster Quarters, coming from the chimes at the chapel of the Will Rogers Shrine.

Lara found herself murmuring along, under her breath; "…That by thy help, no foot may slide."

It would make a good prayer for a rock climber as well, she thought. There were surprisingly few good climbs in the area, local guides had said. And they were mostly along the line of water above the Helen Hunt falls, originating up on the somewhat taller peak of Mt. Almagre. Lower down, they were said to be chossy but as one got higher the pink "Pikes Peak granite" was progressively revealed. That was tough stuff, formed in an igneous intrusion during the Precambrian; as close to basement rock as you were likely to get on the Earth's surface.

She had a harness, a lead line, and ascenders in her pack anyhow. But then, she wasn't intending to climb _up_ anything with them.

The quiet of the evening, and the natural setting, had somehow managed to dilute her awareness. The bicyclists were on her almost before she noticed them. Two, then another, then a last straggler. That was bad. That was just enough to give them that anonymity of numbers that allowed a group of individually sensible human beings to form themselves into a mob. These were mountain bikes, with the kind of mass-market look that spoke of enough money to provide leisure, but not enough to give them more productive hobbies.

They gave a few restrained whoops on seeing her. One kicked up his front wheel in a bit of a display, two others sped up with instinctive purpose to reconnoiter. The encounter was still resting on the broad plateau of normalization. If there was another hiker with her, there would be a quick bit of gruff hello, how's the view, and they'd be off. If she was alone, the ledge would narrow again.

_I do not have time for this,_ Lara thought. The circling bikes returned. The first riders were already off of theirs, coming towards her with easy, seemingly friendly smiles. So she reached into her waistband, pulled out the Black Widow, and tapped the laser sight on. She settled the dot on the bridge of the first young man's nose.

"The cylinder holds five rounds," she announced in a clear voice. "Is there another of your friends we could send for?"

"Hey, hey…there's no need for that," said the first young man. He didn't seem that frightened. Not being able to see the dot was probably part of it.

"I don't know that," Lara told him. "If there's no need, then we both walk away. If there was need, and this gun wasn't in my hands…"

He blinked. Apparently logic was not one of his strong subjects. He took another step, and Lara came within a fraction of an ounce of the full trigger pull. She had to fight her way back down from that. She realized with a shock that she had been quite ready to shoot him, and all his buddies. Pre-emptive defense was one thing, but this went well beyond.

Why? Was she that much in fear? Was it that she was so driven to find the Giza artifact, she wasn't willing to trifle with delays and interference? She was uncomfortably aware — had been, especially since the conversation with Carlos in that jumped-up burger joint on the bank of the Nile — of the trail of bodies she'd left behind her on her previous archaeological expeditions.

_Is this where it ends up, Lara?_ She asked herself. _Shooting a bunch of kids because it is less trouble than actually finding out if they are a threat?_

"Stop!" she warned. One of the other boys had been flanking her. Maybe he was just moving. Maybe he was hoping to grab the pistol from her. She switched her aim point to his center of mass and he stopped.

She sighed, loudly. "I know," she told her audience. "It's a pocket pistol. Not very intimidating. But don't be too misled by the size. This is a North American Arms Black Widow, chambered for .220 WMR; that's the most powerful cartridge made in that caliber. It will go fifteen inches deep into ballistic gelatin. It will have excellent penetration on you."

And…something changed. The ledge was getting wider again. Why? The threat parameters hadn't changed.

Then she got it. Tribalism. She had been speaking in a language they recognized. Bloody America. In love with guns, they were.

If that was it, then make a point of continuing. "Forty grain Winchester Super-x," she said. "Muzzle velocity over 1,100 fps. Expansion is only so-so, though." She grinned, then, and made sure to show her teeth. "That's why I aim for vital organs."

"That's…" one of them started, swallowed, then spoke again. "That's an aftermarket laser sight?"

Lara grinned again. "I know; the red dot just so, so, 1990's. The iron sights on this thing are shit for low light. Too close together. Next season they'll add a tritium. The LaserLyte pops right on; it replaces the factory cylinder pin. Keeps the gun slim enough it will still slide easily into a hide-out holster — or a pocket."

"You shoot often?" another of the young men asked. The tension was already easing.

"Not with this little darling," Lara replied in a friendlier way. "Reload is a pain in the backside. Have to remove the cylinder completely. But what do you expect of a back-up weapon?"

"I get you there," volunteered another of them. "My dad carries one of those mini autos for a backup. Looks like it was made in Taiwan. I tell him, dad, you need to use that thing, you'd be better off throwing it."

"So what's your usual carry?" It was the first one who had spoken, again. "Another revolver?" Yanks again. One gun for day wear. An even bigger one for serious use. And that wasn't even counting the collection at home.

Lara shook her head. "Automatics. A pair of Heckler & Kock USP's in 9mm. Match version with the heavier barrel. The nice thing about the USP's is all the parts are ambidextrous, so I have mine mirrored. I had the slides mirrored too — well, stainless — but went back to the factory nitride finish after trying it once in the field."

"Honestly, 9mm? 45 ACP has superior stopping power…"

"Don't start again with that, Bob!"

"Yeah, come on. .454 Casull beats the hell out of them both. Wait…you have a _pair_ of 9's?"

"Yes, a pair. I'm an archaeologist, boys, and I tend to work in parts of the world that don't like _anybody_. My field kit is open carry. I always have the pistols. When I have to go somewhere particularly sketchy, like Bolivia, I'll add a hockler or the good old Remington 870. Haven't found a long arm I really like yet. They all have their little issues."

"This part of 'Springs can get a little sketchy, too," the talkative one admitted. He seemed a little smarter than the others. "So…why are you here?"

In for a farthing, in for a pound. "Why do you think?" she asked them. "I'm here to break into NORAD."

* * *

The oddest thing is that she had to convince them she meant no harm. That this was just another lark of urban spelunking, of breaking in just to be able to say you could. As outcast as the lads were, they were still patriots in a way that shouldn't really have surprised her (Since her own people showed so much of the same.)

With that out of the way — and her geocachers magazine circulating — she was able to get down to the business of crawling in. The top of the silo came out in yet another of the numerous cryptically labeled antenna farms that dotted the ridge lines, each surrounded by high wire fences and harsh lighting. Camouflaged of course by a layer of dirt and a twenty foot tower that, for all she knew, was translating the WFF's "Monday Night Raw" for Colorado Springs subscribers at this very moment.

But among the many things you needed to get a massive rocket out of a deep silo was some way of not creating a partial vacuum behind it. Even a remote silo didn't want to be sucking anything from the Project Nergal bird as it spooled up to full military power. So there were vents. Yes; as much as she had made fun of Zip and the others for suggesting it, she was going to be crawling through an air vent.

Or, rather, abbing down. The vent she wanted was at about 15 degrees off vertical, thus coming out near some of that convenient rubble. Lara had to wonder if the expedient demolitions of the Honeymoon Lodge hadn't been in part to cover up other work on the top of the mountain.

With her drafted helpers she had the vent uncovered, and her tools made quick work of opening it. "You may want to vanish," she suggested to the boys. "One way or another, I suspect the top of this mountain is going to be crawling with Air MP's before morning."

And then she was on line. Her custom lead was a scarily thin 2mm. Doubled for recovery, it had a comfortable margin for weight bearing, but the ascenders would shred the hell out of it on the way back. To get a decent grip on the thin line she was using a Petzl Piranha for descender. Like a lot of her gear choices, there was necessary compromise between precision and flexibility.

The angle was too shallow and the headroom too low for bounce-and-coast. And a Batman wall walk would mean she couldn't see where she was going. So the wove into the Piranha, after making sure she'd tied a knot a full meter from the bitter ends, brought the lines over her shoulder, and turned face down into the shaft for an Australian.

It was also, she realized a couple of meters down, also a way to leave a good parting impression on her erstwhile crew.

The LED on her pack straps pushed into the darkness of the narrow shaft. This was straight drilled, no frills, with only the top few meters lined with a steel shield. The rock below was wet from the innumerable springs that worked their slow way through the fracture planes of the massif. Water was ever the archaeologist's nemesis. Even in the harsh, dry landscape of the Theban Hills, water infiltrated into tombs, destroying artefacts of wood and any less-than-perfectly prepared mummy. She was going to be quite dirty by the time she finished this night.

Twenty meters. Thirty. The pattern on the rope passing through her descender changed and she slowed, coming up on the knotted ends with care. Forty. She'd expected this. NORAD was under as much as 600 meters of rock. These sloping tunnels could be only a fraction of that, or they could be even more.

She brought a bight up and took a half-hitch over the Piranha. Outdoors they were all about clean climbing. Inside, there was no point in leaving a rack's worth of perfectly good pro stuck into a cracked bit of rock no-one else would ever see. This was what cordless drills were for.

The hammer drill chattered and smoked working its way through the tough granite. She tapped in the expanding bolt with a rock hammer and clipped in. Once she was solid and confident enough in the new anchor she unweighted from the abseil line, unknotted it and pulled it through. Now she was committed. "Not like I ever return the same way I came in, anyhow," she said aloud as the end of the rope snaked down from the anchor far above her, her last point of contact with the clear mountain air.

She had to repeat the task twice more. That would make it about 130 meters; the last pitch was a short one. She braced her feet on the edges of the sturdy metal mesh that screened the end of the shaft and straightened up, her muscles glad to take a break from the abseil. She chucked the high speed cutting wheel into her cordless and started to work. In about twenty minutes, she had a shoulder-width chunk of steel she wrenched up and braced against the side of the shaft.

The remaining metal looked sturdy enough; she wove a length of accessory cord through the gaps and clipped one of her last carabiners to it. The hole she'd cut was so narrow, she felt like Buzz Aldrin wriggling his way out of the Lunar Lander with the huge brick of the PLSS on his back. Then she was swinging free, suspended in an open void.

This was no natural cavern. This was the shaft the 1967 doomsday machine was supposed to traverse as the world began to end. "Journey to the Earth's Core," she said to herself. The Jules Verne book had been a favorite of hers when she was very young.

Somewhere in the darkness above here would be the huge steel doors that sealed the shaft. Glimmering in the LED light were the shapes of the vertical rails that framed the shaft. Munson had guessed this. Most silos were little more than one missile deep, with the protection coming from the silo cap. This one added an insane depth into the rock — not that the overpressure of a precise hit wouldn't slam down the shaft like a tsunami wave. So there were no access platforms, no maintenance ladders at this level. Just sheer concrete-lined wall, and the steel framing.

She repeated the abseil, this time wrapping lengths of her dwindling supply of accessory cord around the solid framing members.

Bad news. There was a secondary door. _I guess they did plan for the blast overpressure of a near miss_, she thought. She studied the mass of steel. Even if she had the tools to open it, the noise that would make would alert the entire mountain.

On either side of the door gaped two huge mouths, though. A suppression system. That made sense; the flood of water that was piped below the Shuttle Stack was to prevent the concussion from rebounding off the pad and damaging the rocket. Nergal was to lift on a cluster of similar solid-fuel boosters, even if it was otherwise not quite in the same size class.

In any case, she'd take access where she could find it. A bit of tricky climbing and she was within one mouth. It angled up sharply, but she was just able to brace into it and chimney past the upright. Then she was in a long horizontal shaft — and she felt air on her face.

According to her innate sense of direction she had moved horizontally by almost another hundred meters before the pipe ended, cut off sharply and left incomplete, just as it broached the walls of a new chamber.

A chamber with light, and moving air, and distant sounds. After a few minutes of cautious observation, then, she leaned from the open mouth of the pipe, then made a short jump to a cross support that held a brace of similar pipes from the cavern roof.

And thus she was swinging by her hands, hanging over the heart of the American air and space command inside one of the most secure facilities in the world.

* * *

At intersection B-2, above the command center, a concrete dome thirty meters in diameter reinforced a shear zone in the overlying granite. Down the grid of tunnels, bolts spiked into the ceiling and wire mesh was draped between them to catch falling rock. Water dripped constantly, enough so pits were worn into the concrete floor beneath them.

The buildings were pre-fab and painted gray and the snaking pipes that ran everywhere were color-coded for air, fresh water, and so on. The Air Force might run the place, but it had been built by the Navy. It had the feeling of being below decks on a gargantuan aircraft carrier. Except for the frequent places where the raw rock of the heart of the massif was exposed, harsh and uncompromising.

Suspended from a pipe run that tracked right across the center of the dome, and over the boxy, near windowless three-story building that contained the command center itself, was Lara Croft.

She owed her life several times over, she figured, to the fact that people rarely looked up. She worked her way as quickly as she could across the pipe, and to a place where she could make an expedient abseil down. Immediately she ducked under one of the blocky buildings, crawling between the massive, meter-high springs that supported them.

Not what she had planned. If she'd meant to be inside NORAD proper, she could have skipped the rest of that climb. Well, this beat the tour idea in one way; no-one knew she was here. Not yet, anyhow.

The place was active. Out towards the entrance, vehicle engines whined as trucks and busses came and went. Technicians, guards, civilian contractors moved about. A squad-sized party in grey sweats jogged past, singing cadence in short choppy phrases between panting breaths, led by one soldier and picked up by the others in the age-old pattern of call-and-response. The hum and rattle of machinery was constant, and the smell of grilled cheese drifted from the commissary/cafe.

NORAD was actually drawing down, as Zip had said. Many of the buildings were now vacant, and the traffic was concentrated towards the Main Entrance. She mentally consulted the map she had gotten from Munson. Unfortunately, that would be the best place to look for an elevator down.

The close-spaced springs actually made it fairly easy to remain hidden. Although it was slow, uncomfortable work between them, and the congealed oil and dust was rapidly revising her wardrobe choice back towards basic black.

Numbers were stenciled on buildings, brown plastic name plates identified doors with the eternal style of every government office building, everywhere. On various corners and clusters of machinery were cryptic little name plates with boasting slogans from the builders or maintainers; "12111 OMCS ELEC 'Always in control'."

At last she was within her search area. There was a little cul-de-sac containing a desk and one of those little trailers that seemed to house on-site security at every construction project ever. That looked promising. Further east, a bored-looking airman in dark fatigues, automatic weapon slung, stood as guard near a niche where the dumpsters were stored.

Wait. They were guarding the dumpsters? Was the Air Force getting that serious about separating their recycling?

Lara edged carefully to where she could see further into the niche carved into the raw rock. The rear was screened. Or was a mesh-work door. A cargo elevator. Perfect! The problem with personnel elevators is people used them. That meant a layer of human security was necessary to identify and otherwise interact with all those people. Cargo elevators, on the other hand, relied on mechanical security.

Oh, and this one guard. _With any luck they'll think he collapsed from sheer boredom,_ Lara thought as she extended the artefact from KV63. Then she pressed the contact. It made that distinctive electronic sound and lightning briefly wreathed the lone guard.

Lara was in motion. She quickly pulled the guard out of sight, checked his condition and made him comfortable. Then it was time to employ one of Zip's gadgets, which worked better than they usually did and had the door to the cargo elevator open in moment. Calling the elevator itself was far too risky.

It was another long climb. Lara found herself wondering, again, about the claimed efficacy of the "Horus Draught." Twenty-eight stories (she counted the painted numbers on the shaft) was a lot for anyone to go without a place to rest their arms. She was beginning to suspect her own endurance was just slightly off the usual graphs.

The elevator itself was at the bottom of the shaft. Only in California were the handy roof access panels left unlocked by law. This one was typical, in that she practically had to dissemble the top of the elevator in order to get inside. But that's what tools were for.

She was close, very close. It was late enough there wasn't much foot traffic (at least not from the distant sounds of it that filtered down the narrow, metal-plated corridors). She angled along the broader cargo-way, supported — this far under the mountain — with broad hoops of metal like the hull of a submarine.

One more door, and she had it.

* * *

The Giza artefact was spectacular. The edges were notched in the geometric patterns of Old Kingdom artefacts, but the inner ring was decorated with symbols she had never seen the like of before. It was an entirely new language, and she itched to start learning it. The thing was in some dark, metallic substance and looked both unutterably ancient and uncompromisingly sturdy. She felt, instinctively, that it far, far predated any of the cultures that had grown up along the flood plains of the Nile.

That, however, was not the most remarkable thing. It sat at the bottom of the shaft, in a squared-off, two-story room top-lit by a harsh industrial lights. An expanded-steel walkway ran up to it from floor level. And it was supported, upright, by a frame of motors and coils and other pieces of technology.

They didn't just _have_ it down here. They were _doing_ something with it.

Then flood lights clicked on, momentarily blinding her. "Intruder alert!" A tenor voice with a slightly nervous tone declared over a piercingly loud PA. "Intruder in the gate room!"

With a whine steel panels were rolling up, uncovering a bank of windows on the second story of the facing wall. Squinting against them, Lara could see a room full of electronics, and a stocky man in Air Force blue holding a microphone. "Stand right where you are!" this man ordered.

The door had opened again. Airmen in helmets and flack jackets were piling in, quickly kneeling to cover her with individual weapons while others worked swiftly to set up crew-served weapons. Lara very carefully put the artefact from KV63 on the floor.

More movement. The lanky officer from Arlington strolled into the circle of firearms that was now pointing directly at her chest. "Took you long enough," he said laconically. "Your first mistake was using a zat," he said. He held up a brother to the cobra-shaped artefact.

Lara smiled and tilted her head, in a "You got me good," way, and raised her hands.

"Yeah, right," the Air Force officer said. He extended and fired the _zat'nik'tel_ in a single motion. Tingling pain wreathed her for a moment, then everything went black.


End file.
